feather2pixels

Why is To-Shi-O dragging a keg?

For our third party is why! We had what I guess was technically a kegger on Saturday night and it was reasonably successful. That is to say people showed up to our apartment, drank, and eventually left. The only casualties were a shower curtain and a scrappy rug—just a shower curtain if you don’t mind the rotting smell of old trendy pilsner.

Speaking of people who don’t mind the smell of rotting beer, Danny humored me while I told him all about the weekend. Afterwards, he added, “Yeah we usually have a couple of kegs at every party.” A couple?! How often does Danny’s house have parties, anyways? “You know, a couple of times a month.” Lesson: never try and amuse a Big Ten student with your keg-obtaining exploits.

The SF postcard video project is done! Nowell posted it last week and now I’ve followed suite (that only took six hours). Check it out.

I’m in San Luis Obispo, the most annoying to spell place in America. School sent me here to attend a teaching workshop for engineers at Cal Poly. What is a teaching workshop for engineers? Great question. A teaching workshop for engineers is a type of prison where people who are good at intonating their voice spend three days trying to convince engineering professors to look up from their Power Point presentations. Oh it’s not even that bad–I happen to strongly believe in all this bullshit and appreciate what these people are trying to do–but why do these things need to descend into self parody so quickly? Why is someone ever insisting on receiving my attention to tell me that “getting [students] to remember is hard, but how many kids know every word to the rap music?” Jesus!

At least I get to observe myself teaching on tape (or rather, I will so when I muster the courage to put my pride where my mouth is and watch it) and at least S.L.O. is a lovely place to visit. I am staying with Tom the Historian, from cruise, and tonight he baked beets and pork tenderloin while the central coast breeze circulated through his antique apartment.

Also, cruise was no fluke: that dude drinks like no tenured professor I know.

Speaking of To-shi-O, that guy has been talking about building a critical mass bike-stereo, practically since I have known him. It finally debuted on Friday.

There are plenty of bike stereos at any given critical mass, the most ambitious of which are powered by car batteries, toted around in carts, and audible from a block away. Sonically speaking, competing with those fuckers is a fool’s errand. But it’s a huge mass with plenty of room for riders with more modest arrangements, like To-shi-o, a little guy with a big dream to share his playlist with the masses–his indie rock alternative to burning man techno.

With the enlistment of Alfonso, who works in a professional sign shop, the project took on a new level of ambition. Mostly, the stereo ended up looking a lot slicker than I ever imagined, complete with vinyl decals and an iPod holder. Also, I was impressed that the thing ran off of eight AA batteries and used sheets of foam core to amplify the sound (the same way a homemade speaker works with a paper plate: move larger surfaces of air, get more sound). The excitement before the ride was palpable:

On second thought, let To-shi-o tell you about our three industrial dryers (now just two), the way only he can: