I don't particularly feel like writing anything right now, so here are some cute, fuzzy kittens.

I may be crazy, but "Iron Chef" has got to be the best show on television.

If you think of yourself as any kind of sports fan, casual or serious, curious or bored, or just want to find some good sprts-related articles, you owe it to yourself to check out ESPN's Page 2 http://espn.go.com/page2/. It is undoubedtly the best sports site on the web.

So, it's the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack...

it's also Rich's b-day...

hmmmmm........

I think this is how it works: Malcontents & Ne-er-do-wells is the parent corporation. Think of GM, nothing is produced under the GM name, but instead by Chevy, Buick, GMC, etc. I guess that Ambiguously Disgruntled Productions would be the "creative properties" wing, since everything I seem to do falls into that division, even my newly started beer brewing venture. Game 7 Productions would serve as the social and sporting events organizing and facilitating wing. That leaves the mostly unused Angry Ambivalence trademark, but maybe that's the "think tank" or R&D division, it has very little output under it's name, but it guides the corporation along. That leaves the Malcontent, which of course is me.

Do I need to find something else to do?

I just whipped this up on Photoshop. So, I have a logo, now what do I do exactly?

what IS Ambiguously Disgruntled Productions. I'm losing track of my creative entities here. What exactly was Malcontents & Ne'er-do-wells? Is that my parent corporation? Oh, I'm so confused! Then, of course, there was Game 7 Productions, which used to be responsible for the shindigs I'd throw, but I believe they were fully absorbed by...? I need to come up with a corporate structure. I'll get to work on that. In the meantime, I have this nifty logo.

All righty then, it's a good work of art (admittedly one of my "favorites" in the "classical" art realm, but I'm not sure the description is dead on. I'm happy with it, though.

If I were a work of art, I would be Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night. I am a tiny village at peace while overhead rages the tumult of the heavens. Objects whirl and flash around me in a fevered haze only partially reflected in reality while I remain grounded and secure in my isolation. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

and there you go

Well, I either am just flat-out incapable of baking anything, need a bread machine, or have a bad recipe. Who knows, but my second loaf of bread turned out only marginally better than the first, which means it still is far short of my goals. It actually tastes fantastic, but it's far from the big-fluffy sandwich-type bread I'm looking for. It's more like a zucchini bread or something. I could give it another go, but I feel like I'm just wasting food with these failed attempts. If anyone out there knows good recipes for making bread using spent grains from beer brewing, let me know.

I had a indoor soccer game earlier tonight, we won 9-6, and would have blown them out if they didn't have just an awesome goalie. He certainly stymied me on a couple of great saves (and one or two "chokes" on my part -- great goalies get you to do that, you overthink the shot and either put it right to him or miss entirely). I did have two, one from an impossible angle -- and one of the best shots I've ever had on a soccer field -- indoor or outdoor -- in my life. From where I was, the only real opportunity I had was to bang it off the far post and in, so I pulled my foot back, drove it, and BANG! You know you've made the "highlight reel" when guys on the other team are saying out loud -- not muttering -- "nice shot." My second goal was a one-timer off of a beautiful feed, just beating the goalie to the ball and calmly tapping it past him. Damn, it was a nice pass, I did one of those NBA things, where the guy goes up for the alley-oop and makes a highlight-reel dunk, and he doesn't even get fired up, he just calmly turns and points to the guy who set him up. It was beautiful. I was on tonight, and despite the fact it lead to a handful of lost balls and bad touches, I was making some moves with my ball-handling I usually don't even try, and on a couple occasions even did what I rarely, if ever, do: create my own shot. Sure, I missed the shot (see "choking" above) but it's good to know you can do that sometimes.

So, I'm teaching myself Photoshop, and at the risk of being drowned out by the scoffing from people I know who know the program well, I'm just getting frustrated right now. You can just do such a dizzying amount of things with it, that sometimes you either a) don't know which of those things to use, b) can't seem to find the "simple stuff" or c) do everything the "complicated way" because you haven't found/don't know about the function or more efficient method yet. And yes, if you're wondering, I'm one of those people who just dives in and eschews any sort of manual or tutorial (in most cases, I actually found myself using the tutorial for Dreamweaver recently!). These things always follow the same tried and true pattern:
1) Excitement -- "boy, I can't wait to start doin' stuff"
2) Frustration -- "dammit, this seems easy... why isn't this easy"
3) Enlightenment -- "oh yeah, okay, yeah, this is cool, okay, I'm getting it now"
repeat ad nauseam for days, weeks, months, years, or until I just give up and find something else to do, thus leaving my website untended for months at a time.

They just got done playing "Where the Street Have No Name" on KZOK, and it made me want to post the following:
best song openings in rock history:
1) Baba O'Riley by the Who
2) Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns n' Roses
3) Where the Street Have No Name by U2

There's this guy, MC, who is Mike's best friend, and seems to be a great influence on Tyler's blogging. I've only ever visited his site once or twice before, and just got back from clicking around on it for a few minutes. From what I've garnered, not only from this brief experience but from information I've gleaned over time from Mike and Tyler, it suddenly occurrs to me that this guy probably couldn't be any more different from me. It's impossible, we occupy complete opposite ends of the Social scale. I'm afraid if we were ever in the same room, there would be a tremendous matt-antimatter explosion.

I decided to make some bread out of some of the "spent grain" from the brewing endeavor last night. I think it would have turned out well, except I used exactly HALF as much yeast as I was supposed to. Why? Well, I doubled the recipe I found online... except for the last one: yeah, that's right, the yeast. Of course, this all occurred to me after baking it and wondering why it didn't rise enough. Hmmm, I think I'll give it another go tomorrow

Greg and I are making a second batch of beer, this time an Amber. We had some trouble when we "racked" the first batch, the Porter, from the fermentor into the carboy (with some on-the-spot cleanup from Rich). We still have some kinks to work out in our process, but I'm getting it down. Right now we are waiting for it to cool before we add the yeast, stir it up, and wait a couple weeks.

another go at it, with only one changed answer (the one I was least sure about) nets this result: (now I feel better)

If I was a James Bond villain, I would be Ernst Stavro Blofeld. I enjoy fluffy white cats, dropping people in piranha pools, and initiating World War III. I am played by Donald Pleasence in You Only Live Twice. Who would you be? James Bond Villain Personality Test

I'm a little disturbed by this:

If I was a James Bond villain, I would be Pussy Galore. I enjoy flying, a good roll in the hay, and nerve gassing army bases. I am played by Honor Blackman in Goldfinger. Who would you be? James Bond Villain Personality Test

Even though it doesn�t matter at all, because Hef just chooses the one he fucked the most, here is one man�s opinion on the rundown for Playmate of the Year. (people at work caution: links to Playboy website, although they are lame "R" rated photos)

t1) Miss Janurary Irina Veronina:
Hot blonde Russian chick (insert Homer-esque drooling sound here). Great pictorial and centerfold photo with shower theme. It�s just good clean livin�!

t1) Miss December Shanna Moakler:
I know it�s a cop-out to have a tie for first, but I�ve got to recognize Shanna because she looked far more �natural� than most of the other playmates this year (which makes her my sentimental favorite), and she�s still hotter than most of them. Better-than-average pictorial, but typically lame centerfold.

t3) Miss August Jennifer Walcott:
Yep, she�s not blonde! Who cares, she has probably the best �package� of the lot this year, and had possibly the best pictorial (fortunately not too hampered by the typically lame centerfold). A good chance to win it all with the �non-blonde� sentimentalists.

t3) Miss May Crista Nicole:
She is just HOT, but is seriously hampered by an overall less-than-inspirational pictorial and centerfold. I have a hunch she would be the best looking in normal clothes just walking down the street.

t5) Miss September Dalene Kurtis:
This is where this endeavor gets to be the sort of fruitless exercise akin to �pick the beer you want from Elysian.�(you can click on that link -- it's a brewery) If I saw this chick just walking around I�d probably get instant chub, but in the exalted realm that is the Playmates of 2001, she can manage no better than tied for 5th. Done in by the �too fake� dye job and lame pictorial, but props for the totally shaved look.

t5) Miss October Stephanie Heinrich:
Again, we�re treading in the dangerous territory I mentioned above, and I�m certainly splitting hairs here. Stephanie had undoubtedly the best centerfold (along with Irina), had a good pictorial, and is the most �Playmatiest� looking of the bunch; but therein lies my beef. She should�ve opted for some C�s instead of the D�s she got, and needs a less-dyed shade of blonde. But DAMN!!!!

t7) Miss April Katie Lohmann:
Another in the long string of �dyed blondes-huge fake tits� that dominated this years Playmate line-up. She sort of gets lost in the shuffle, with a decent pictorial and (typically) lame centerfold.

t7) Miss July Kimberley Stanfield:
Another blonde, but she stands out a bit because of her more �natural� look (read, more realistic-looking tits and less-harsh dye job) and one of my favorite pictorials of the year. Her age (19) weirded me out a bit.

9) Miss June Heather Spytek
The �Best of the Rest,� although that�s a bit like calling Pyramid Hefeweizen �a decent beer.� She has a �perky� look, accentuated by that big, kinky hair. Solid pictorial and centerfold effort.

10) Miss February Lauren Michelle Hill:
One of my roommate�s favorites, she is totally natural and absolutely gorgeous. Tall, leggy, long hair, and touting a pictorial that my roommate enthuses �had that really great ass shot!� It is absolutely criminal that she is rated this low in this arbitrary and demeaning categorization I�ve got going, now that I think about it. I don�t know, her pictorial just didn�t do it for me (with the lamest of the typically lame centerfolds) and she got lost in the mass of big-chested floozy blondes.

t11) Miss November Lindsey Vuolo:
I�ll say this, she had a good pictorial. When it comes to Playmates, I usually don�t go for the shorter hair, especially in combo with non-blonde-ness. My biases show through with this low ranking.

t11) Miss March Miriam Gonzalez:
I call a tie because I really don�t want to rank Miriam last. Long hair (a plus over Lindsey) but I wasn�t a fan of her over-sized boobs. Had a spunky Pool-table themed pictorial (having a pool table in my house, that worked for me).

So, one man�s opinion. I encourage feedback at jake_reeder@hotmail.com
(I didn't feel like uploading and linking to pictures of every chick, so I apolgize for lack of sufficient pictures)

I just wanted to note, I've read that the Green River murder suspect, Gary Ridgeway, graduated from Tyee High School. Yipee!

Well, like a lot of people, our internet server went down, with the collapse of Excite, sometime Fri night/Sat morn. But it was back up sometime this morning, so all is good with the world.

The 2002 World Cup Draw took place Sat @ 10:00 GMT, and it looks like the US has a good group (good, as in good for their chances to advance). The US will have all of their 3 first-round games in Korea. Group F looks unbelievably tough, with England, Argentina (who have no love lost between them), always tough Sweden (a sentimental favorite of mine) and Nigeria, the strongest African side. Almost not fair, since all of these teams will likely be worthy of advancement come tournament time.

Sat. night was interesting. I rolled over to Tad�s house in Redmond. We ended up watching a couple movies, one of which was Eyes Wide Shut. I�m a big Kubrick fan, but the movie was� well� interesting. It was a little too slow, really, but interesting. About 11:00 o�clock Tad had an insatiable jones to head down to Krispy Kreme in Issaquah. I was hesitant, knowing that there is always a long wait and THEY�RE JUST DONUTS, PEOPLE!!! Tad insisted that it shouldn�t be that bad, and Chris (Tad�s roommate) and I reluctantly decided to go. Once there, we saw the line was quite long, even at 11:20 on a Sat night. THEY�RE JUST FUCKING DONUTS, PEOPLE!!! We ended up waiting � AN HOUR AND 15 MINUTES for our fucking donuts. I ended up getting a dozen devil�s food and a dozen Strawberry jelly filled. I had only ever had two Krispy Kreme donuts before, and I found it remarkable how normal they were. THEY�RE FUCKING DONUTS, PEOPLE!!!! Nothing I experienced last night made me alter my opinion. In fact, I feel like a real jackass for actually taking part in what has got to be the most inexplicably asinine social phenomena to roll around in years. THEY�RE JUST DONUTS, PEOPLE, SIMPLE FUCKING DONUTS!!!

Today I mostly sat around and watched football, and I went for a jog around Green Lake.