so now what?

so yeah...you guessed it. i'm on sabattical now, but just like backstreet i'll be back. on january 1st specifically.

until then, i'm working packing going to wedding slava-ing bike ganging frisbeeing brewing drinking sleeping talking golfing and lots of mug clubbing.

see you on the flip side

ps the new blog is http://quadrantthreetoquadrantone.blogspot.com - join the robot hunt as it goes all intergalactic and shit

the end of the robot hunt. a little premature. that's what she said.

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me, mr. the diamond, and dirty jersey (top) hiked up wrightson last saturday. it was snowy, cold, and super windy. we could only stay at the summit like a few minutes before the cold drove us out.

last year on the same thanksgiving saturday, i took the same hike with mrs. the diamond and action (bottom). it was equally pretty out, but sunny, calm, and generally warmer.

its interesting to me to think about when i posted the bottom picture on last years blog, and think about all the stuff that's happened from last years wrightson hike to this years. and to look back over this blog and see what i thought was fun or neat or whatever this year.

and looking back over the year, its alot of fun with my friends here in tucson. from poker to snowboarding to mustaches and mullets to gladiator fighting to brewing to bachelor parties to polyphonic spree to wives to wizard staff to frisbee to plush to weddings to hiking, its been a memorable year.

which is sort of why this blog has to end. its a few days premature, and nearly a month short of posts. but the train ends.

its like, i've been really busy over the last few months. and part of its been doing stuff like thesis stuff and work stuff. but mostly its been non stop hanging out with my friends, and getting every last bit of tucson and my friends and my life here that i can. to the point that i can't find the time to keep up with it in this blog. nor do i feel like keeping up with it right now. it can be a pain to take your camera everywhere. sometimes its just more fun to enjoy it from in the scene, not from behind the camera lens.

for a while, earlier in the year, i thought when the blog came to an end, i'd have some great metaphor for what the robot was, like related to life, and whether or not i'd actually found it. turns out, the blogs done, and i don't.

but somehow, it still feels like i found it.

robot, consider the quest successful.

yoshimi out.

its because we had to teach the hipsters how to be ironic

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while i'm linking backposts, today my uncle friederich in munich (not really my uncle...can you tell?) and his wife sent me this picture of my family with him when i lived in munich when i was 8.

i sent my mom this picture. as well as one i took of us earlier this year, in march.

my mom: i can't believe you grew a mustache this year.

i'll get to december 1st i swear

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brewing for our upcoming contribution to thanksgiving

in brewing our wine-beers we sometimes end up with a little bit of grape juice extract left over. think grape juice flavor, syrup consistency.

jon promised to drink an 8 oz brandy snifter of the stuff.

at least it wasn't a korma chug

i say doha you say doja. its all the same shit.

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day of the dead parade in tucson

this kind of parade exemplifies everything thats right about tucson. a bunch of people out walking in this parade, some cool floats, some fresh drum beating, some cool costumes, a little politlcal protest here and there, but mostly alot of fun.

its the kind of parade where you could hypothetically know 10 or so people going. leave your house to go to the parade by yourself. and despite the many thousands of people there, still run into everyone you knew would be there.

tucson really is that small. which can be good in that maybe all your groups of friends sort of cross.

alternatively, to quote the great poet on his take on tucson:
'its a small city so you'll run into the same people. but it aint never gonna be that honey you wanted to see again. its gonna be those tools you never wanted to run into again.'

but you can still give me the pity laugh like 90% of my jokes get

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moving mr. and mrs. the diamond into their new house

the collective of us got the diamonds a fresh leather couch and ottoman for their wedding. its comfort level is sublime, and its just wid enough to hold two people if they're down to get all snuggly.

best part of the present: steph and jewface made a card with mrs. the diamond and babies and mr. the diamond all fat with a bucket of chicken with the caption 'for your growing family'

i guess i should have said mrs. the diamond wants babies super bad and mr. the diamond is gonna become a fatty one day with mrs. the diamonds really good cooking.

consider the translation of joke from card to blog failed.

yeah - and this wasn't even a spree song and it was still that good

just because its worth seeing for real

the spree is the best damn band ever.

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i've wanted to see the polyphonic spree more than any other band for the past 4 years.

the spree is the kind of band that can cover live and let die and get away with it.

the spree is the kind of band that can cover lithium and get away with it.

the spree is the kind of band that can get rory to come home early from china.

the spree is the kind of band that can put on a show that can get ingrid to describe as 'spiritual'

that and becoming dr. doha

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after 4.5 years of sparing amounts of stress, mediocre work, and rarely waking up before 9, i'm not sure i deserved much of a break after my thesis defense. indeed, the entire process was a little anticlimactic, despite being told it would be the third best moment in my life (marriage and baby if ever would be the 1 and two).

that said, spending a day in a field watching blues bands laying in the cool november sun was the perfect way to spend my first day as a doctor.

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that's dr. nop.bot to you.

and yes, you're looking at 3 generations of red and white. nothing but

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so i know this blog has really sucked alot over the last month. like ALOT alot. but in fairness, i've been busy. i've been traveling alot, i've been hanging out with my friends alot, and i've even been working alot. so much in fact that i literally haven't had enough free time over the last month to sit down and deal with this robot bullshit.

but tonight i wanted a night to myself. this thursday night, of all nights in grad school, i wanted to talk to no one. i wanted myself, some homebrew, some self-medicated medication, an episode of the office. maybe some desperate housewives. and to be asleep by 11.

and i did. and it was glorious.

i'm a badass to hang out with. i should totally do it more often.

like purple sticky icky

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a year ago's fall frisbee league, mandy drafted me despite my desire to not be on an orange team. to protest the team color i started to wear all orange to every game.

but, it turns out that wearing long socks is a pretty good idea for diving in a field that can at best be described as asphalt with a few seedlings of grass in it. so i continued to do the same thing on future team colors - blue and purple to be detailed.

today after our playoff game (quarterfinals - WON!) me and action went out to a bar with marie and her friends. i guess it was halloween or something, a fact which totally passed me by.

i think people probalby thought i was dressed up as something stupid in my all purple though.

but god hates me...so...you know. par for the course.

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i have this allen wrench tool. its like this rectangular thing with a bunch of allen wrenches on it. like in the picture.

it fell apart today. and, in great irony, the part that holds the wrench tool together...needs an allen wrench to fix it.

how fucking ironic.

sort of like getting destroyed by a long distance girlfriend looking for a change of any sort applying for jobs getting a (dream) job across the country and meeting an unbelievable girl right before you leave ironic.

weird.

that's all those years of watching desperate housewives that learned me

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all i know is i deserve a diamond medal for watching the florida georgia game this week with like 700 georgia fans.

maggie: you know when i made that speech at the wedding and mentioned how georgia beat florida, you had this very forced smile on your face. hey, kind of like you just did there!

the answer's action.

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in his best man's toast, action leads in with the line 'so...as the single guy at this wedding...'

smart move on his part.

guess who went home with the single girl at the wedding?

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big day.

yeah. backpost. knowledge of the future. like biff's sports almanac. woot.

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the diamonds wedding week, day 4

the friday before the wedding's been relatively scripted for a while now. rehearsal in the morning. golf in the afternoon, shane and tiff's hosted reception in the evening, and (suprise) catalina magnet high school football game and the shanty in the night time.

i've not beat the diamond at golf in a while now - must be over 5 rounds at least. today, i thought would be my day.

not so. i shot a 116. he shot like 107.

i guess this means florida's destined to win against jawja tomorrow.

i mean october woot

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the diamonds wedding week, day three

i bet if aleks and maggie remembered a little better they'd have asked us to dress differently for their wedding

happy birthday to me. and choalsky

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the diamonds wedding week, day 2

ive had a picture similar to this up before. at the end of summer frisbee league, when i complained that teams i've been on always go under .500 though statisticallly thats unrealistic.

this season, we're 11-2. as of tonight we're the #1 seed going into playoffs, and in my opinion, decently odded at winning the season outright.

for my last season ever, this isn't so bad.

the thing thats odd is that it sort of takes a little bit of the fun out of frisbee. like, the pleasure of winning all of a sudden adds this pressure to continue to win which takes away a little bit of the fun.

its like winning sucks. but losing also sucks.

frisbee's so fucking stupid.

i've been a georiga fan ever since they won the world series

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the diamond's wedding week: day 1

bridal party party at the diamond's parents house (back here in tucson). the diamonds dad, mr the diamond senior was a complete pimp. he literally walked around in a circle the entire night topping everyones drink off until everyone was shitfaced.

unfortuantley, mr. the diamond senior, along with the other diamonds, are georgia fans.

mr. the diamond senior: (to me) you know i can't believe you're a florida fan, and your an okay guy.

i was thinking the same thing about him.

cause i am a doctor of player hating

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went by the place i'm gonna be working at here in boston today to sign (apparently hours of) paperwork.

the secretary: 'so...what degrees do you have?'
me: um...a bachelors. in 2003.
secretary: and masters?
me: um...i don't have one.
secretary: phd?
me: nope.
secretary: so how did you get this job?
me: i'm not sure anyone knows that.
secretary: i'm just gonna put down that you have a phd.

sort of like a catalina magnet high school football game

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went down to the head of the charles race today with my dad. while it was a zoo, and there were probably thousands of people up and down the river (nearly as many people as the tucson marriot has stories) no one really seemed to be paying that much attention. mostly they were just enjoying a seemingly rare beautiful day outside.

after watching for about half an hour, neither me or my dad could figure out what the rules were to boat racing. despite the fact that its a race, no one seemed to give a shit how fast the people next to them were going. and for some reason that i REALLY couldn't understand, some of them were in motor boats!

after asking

some guy: 'nah i don't know what the rules are either. i just come cause everyone's here'

i also call them both homos, though they oddly appreciate that less

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my parents were in town (boston) this weekend, so i hung out with them a bit.

i like to make fun of my parents for their general idiocy. like, my dad asking me if i've heard of 'those ipod things' sometime in late 2006. or something. i refer to them as 'makamma and makappa' sometimes which literally means 'my stupid mom' or 'my stupid dad' in our language.

in the square where my dad proposed to my mom, i caught them in this look. where my dad was saying something stupid and my mom was giving him a look like 'you fucking moron i can't believe i love you'

i thought it was cute.

and ugly girls

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flew to boston today. to find a place to live.

weather in tucson when i left: 50s at night, low 80s in the day time
weather in boston when i arrive: 70s at night 90s in the day time

guess which city has no air conditioning?

especially when i tell them how fat manny is

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with the anomaly that is college football this year, and the big east being a decent conference, we've gotten in the habit of having mugs at no anchovies on thursday nights and watching football. recently, action and beno have been joining to watch the red sox.

i really hate baseball. actually i can see what there is to love about it, but i love hating it more than i could ever love loving it. so i hate baseball.

and i really hate red sox fans. mostly because most of them (action and beno and suz and some number of redsox fans excluded of course) have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

i'm moving to boston in a few months. i'm not sure i've ever said that on this blog. but i am. just laid out there, just like that. i'm moving to boston.

seeing this as a great opportunity to piss redsox fans everywhere off, the great poet and i have run through the possibilities. we thought maybe

a. i could become a yankees fan
b. i could actively burn red sox paraphanlia

but decided on

c. i'll tell everyone i meet 'i'm the biggest red sox fan ever. ive been a fan ever since they won the national championship. i totally just got mmy girlfriend this really cute pink hat with a 'B' on it.'

i'm gonna be a big fucking hit in boston.

good thing everythings correlated with everything so the kids gonna be fucked no matter what

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ghostface show tonight (which, by the way, you should never see. constrain your ghostface listening to cd only...not live. it sucks)

during one of the shitty opening MC's, timmy and i noticed a video game set up in the corner for free so we decided to check it out. but, of course, were too inebriated to get what was going on. it had something to do with a guy walking around cubicles in a very office-space setup.

me: so why's that guy walking around the office aimlessly?
timmy: its weird how he keeps bumping into people make him do something

5 minutes later, i leave. timmy comes up to me after that

timmy: i figured out the point of the game. you're supposed to try kill yourself with staplers and stuff as quickly as possible.

about 10 minutes later, i saw some young mom bring her 2 year old kid over to play the game.

umm. golf. thats the title today.

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golfing sunday

we really really really suck at golf. like alot. like a whole lot. like at least every one of us had a hole where we scored double digits. jewface had to pick up the ball once. the diamond started a few holes with 5 strokes in the bank already. i 5-putted at least 3 holes. and god help action who golfs like he skiis.

a normal round of golf should take no more than 4 hours, including a break at the turn for a beer. we take close to six. granted we spend time fucking around, sometimes shooting balls into the water on purpose. but we take a long long time mostly cause we suck.

the golf ranger noting this:

ranger: you guys need to all have your own clubs to speed things up some.

me: uh, thats not why we're slow. we're slow cause we all hit the balls differerent directions

ranger: get your own clubs.

can't wait to see this guy next week.

its cause they know i'm the biggest player hater there is

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so i'm teaching this class. like on fridays i get half the students. plus on wednesdays ive started running a volunteer class to help the dipshits who can't seem ot get it right.

for the first few months its been all this bullshit like how phases of the moon work, and why every new/full moon isn't an eclipse and the planets and all that stuff that i know very little to nothing about. the kids have cautght on, and even started correcting me when i fuck up, which is often. i've like, had to start studying before i go in front of them.

whats weird is that they have a choice of going to me, or the prof, e, on
fridays. and even though i'm an idiot, they choose me.

last friday, i got a little sick of talking about boring shit that i hardly knew about, so started shooting the shit about college football. turns out i got a little excited and started going off on both pac-ten football, and how most other sports really suck. especailly baseball. turns out even more the az d-tackle and az starting pitcher are both in my class.

after explaning this to brandon and dirtyjersey (i'm boycotting jewtangclan after the horrific ghostface concert...see post in a few days)

jersey: thats why they choose you over (the prof) e! cause you talk about sports the whole time!

brandon: god, i can't believe they're gonna give you a phd in astronomy.

we vice thanks to the vice anyways.

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probably you already know, but i was in this improv group for a long time while in tucson. new kevin. we weren't the best group in the history of comedy, but we had a memorable show here and there. either way, hanging out, not rehearsing, and drinking with these guys (like we'd let a girl in the group...or more likely, like a girl would stay with us even if we begged her...) was a grand old time.

the group changed in number here and there, and by the end had 7 or 8 people. becuase the group was made up of a bunch of slackers like us, not all of us ever came to rehearsal ever. like not once. we had extensive drunken conversations about whether or not the 7 or 8 of us were ever even all in one room at the same time ever, like in the history of the world. or new kevin. same thing. we all went to alot of the same parties, but no one could ever remember.

at maya and joe's wedding yesterday (watch the video) we were all there. and rememberd. for the first time in history.

shaun: maybe the reason we can't ever figure out if we were all there is becuase when we get together we get really drunk and high. and like, forget.

only thing missing was a happy birthday jesus

inclusion of quantum mechanics = best wedding ceremony ever!