Go Bakers!

I've been talking a lot about this lately as Gary and my team, The Bakers, have been holding steady in first place for most of the season. The final tournament for our league takes place all day Saturday at Wissahickon Skating Club. It promises to be an amazing time... 100 guys and all of their friends drunkenly cheering/heckling players on the ice as they play for the championship. There will be 4 kegs of beer and a ton of food. $12 gets you a bottomless cup of beer and neverending piles of burgers and sausage (and maybe a t-shirt if there are some left). Also, if you'd rather, you could just bring your own beer and food, but please don't bring glass bottles (cans only).

As far as timing, I'd suggest showing up at around 2pm, that's probably the peak of the hanging out/drinking action. The championship game happens at 4:15pm. I'm going to be conservative and say that my team has a 50% chance of being in that game. Also, in true Bakers' form, I will be making brownies for my teammates, which we will consume during the 3rd period of the final game. So if all goes well, it will definitely be interesting to watch. And who knows, maybe there will be a few brownies left over for the fans.

So come on out. It's really easy to get to by Regional Rail (R8 to St. Martins) or by bike (ride to Valley Green, cross the bridge on your right and go up the hill about 1/2 mile).

Cool Together

The pool at Marian Anderson Rec Center opens June 26th. Adult swim is at 6pm. Get into it!

Norway to Philly via Utah

I randomly found this pic on Flickr last week and was immediately fascinated by the red and yellow splotches of color. At first when I saw the thumbnail, I thought they were fireworks but that wouldn't make sense since it was the daytime. Were these light leaks, are they a result of a double exposure, or is this from damage to the photo? I wasn't sure, but it didn't matter. I marked it as a favorite and gave a simple comment.

Then the other day, I get a message from the poster, Emily. She saw that I was taking photos in Philly and asked if she knew me, seeing that she lived here up until about 2 years ago. So then I look through her photos and finally put it all together. Turns out I was seeing her friend about 2 years back and we had hung out a bunch at shows, bars and backyard BBQs. How crazy small this little blue sphere is. It's not like I was looking at photos by friends of friends. It was totally random. None of the photos are even tagged. Pretty neat.

Anyway, you should really check out this set. Not only are the photos and colors amazing, but the way these were transferred to digital adds a lot to the character and composition. It's all slide film that was shot by Emily's mom in the late 60's and since she didn't have a slide scanner, she held the slides in front of an incandescent bulb and took a photo with a digital camera. For the most part, you would never know but on some slides with a lot of white space, you can actually see the imprint on the light bulb. On other photos, the bulb is used more to highlight an area of the photo, adding a new compositional element to the old forgotten slides.

This has totally inspired me as my dad has cases and cases of old slides from the 60s to the 80s and I have a lot of free time next week with my work being closed.

Hooray for 11 days off from work. Hooray for random fun art projects that connect us back to our family roots. And hooray for the internet and its post-geographical community building.

Katamari via Dave Bohl

Dave did this for one of his classes. Youtube doesn't really do the audio justice as the track is truly amazing. I've had it in my head for three weeks at this point.

locker room access

this weekend's dude safari

One of many product reviews from Amazon.com

"This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to 'howl at the moon' from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn't have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn't settle for the first thing that comes to him.

I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt.

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark."

Tadoma, June 13th. 6PM

Tadoma will be playing at a temporary storefront gallery space at 2943 Girard on Saturday. I go on at about 7pm and will be playing a 20 minute lo-fi toy keyboard ambient drone set built around sounds from a bird watching trip I took this Spring. It should go really well with Beth Beverly's taxidermy.

Here's the lineup:

Rob Dingman- Tape loops, synth, and xylophone
Tadoma minimalist experimental
Jeff Zeigler of Arc in Roundeffected guitar and noises
Lo Power Plane Indie rock
Busses indie rock

Did I mention that I still want to go to Nova Scotia?

Going to the net...

When a goalie is having a hot game, it's important to get in his face. This means standing in front of him while defensemen take slap shots from the point with the aim of missing you and scoring with the goalie unable to see the puck. Well, last game both, Gary and I were in line in front of the goalie. The shot came in at speed and I was able to get a piece of it with my stick, trying to deflect a puck that was going straight for the goalie's chest. Deflections are kind of tricky. A combination of luck and skill that I don't necessarily have.

Above is a picture of Gary's leg, post deflection. Yep, I deflected the puck straight to his thigh rather than past the goalie (what was that about skill?). Anyway, at least it looks cool. Maybe in a few days it'll be purple and yellow. The chicks dig that.

Now for a real deflection that displays skill, check out Peter Forsberg just toward the end of his prime.