Pet Cobra

Wordless Wednesday: A Reminder

April 1st, y'all. Looking forward to recapping this for you at MamaPop, dear readers.

I've been notably absent here, but there's a reason: I've been amazingly busy with my day job. There's some pretty big news on that horizon that I'm almost ready to share with you. Stay tuned.

 

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday: We No Speak Cantina

If you're going to fuck with the Originals, do it right. (Yolanda Be Cool's "We No Speak Americano" + the Mos Eisley Cantina Band and some creative editing = someone's moment of triumph.)

 

Top 5 Things You Must Do If You're A Dude Going To BlogHer 2011

It occured to me that there are (myself included) only four dadbloggers here in San Diego (please don't send me nasty emails if you are a San Diego dadblogger and I didn't mention you), all of us will be at BlogHer '11 in some capacity, and none of us has (as of this writing) stepped up to offer our fellow male attendees any tips on Guy-Specific things to do while in San Diego, apart from hanging out with hundreds of women who'll be fawning all over us, because I don't give a fuck what you say, that's one of the reasons guys go to BlogHer. Own it, and be free.

Anyway, I'll keep it short and sweet. Here's 5 suggestions for you. You're welcome.

5. Drink some beer at Karl Strauss. San Diego is one of America's best beer towns; our micro- and local breweries can go head-to-head (pun intended) with the nation's best. Pop in to the Karl Strauss brewpub downtown and sample their wares. Recommended: the Amber Lager, of course, and whatever the current special happens to be.

4. Eat a fish taco. San Diego has the best Mexican food in the U.S. We sit right on the border, we don't serve microwaved Velveeta and try to pass it off as "queso" (sorry, Texas, but real queso fundido is actual melted cheese, not Pasteurized Processed Cheese Food), and residents can be fined if caught dining at El Torito. Regarding the fish taco: you may have them where you live, and they may be decent, but they are cheap knock-offs. For the real deal, go to Rubio's - they're generally good, and Rubio's is widely credited as being the first place to offer authetic Baja-style fish tacos to the gueros, but if you don't get them fresh out of the fryer, they lose a little something. (And wash it down with a Pacifico and lime, or a Negra Modelo. Because Coronas are for frat boys and tourists.)

3. Hit the beach. Are you really going to sit through all of those conference sessions while outside the sun shines and the ocean breezes beckon? Of course you're not. You're in Paradise, for Chrissake. Take the Coronado Bay Bridge, and follow the signs to the water. Chill out, maybe bodysurf (and try not to drown - the beachbreak can be punishing), then grab a beer at McP's or show a little class with a martini at the Hotel Del's famous B & S Bar. Also, if you were looking for a Rubio's downtown, you're out of luck, but there is one on Coronado, so hey, now you have another excuse.

2. Check out the ballpark. Petco Park is pretty sweet, even if you're not a baseball fan. There aren't any games scheduled during BlogHer, but it's worth a look. (Fun Fact: my grandmother used to work in the Western Metal Supply building, which now serves as one of the ballpark's walls.) And once you've done that - it'll only take a few minutes - go grab a Mule and a genuine Chicago hot dog (Vienna Beef, flown in from Chicago) at Wolffy's Place. Especially if you're a midwesterner who's confused and frightened by our heretical California ways. 

1. Roam The Gaslamp in search of adventure. There are all sorts of killer places awaiting you in the Gaslamp District. Explore! Do I have a favorite? I'd be hard-pressed to pick one. The Field is an authentic Irish pub - and by "authentic", I mean "literally shipped brick-by-brick from Ireland to San Diego" - with a massive selection of whisky (they claim to have 50 different labels). Vin de Syrah is a great place to chill out before or after a night of carousing. And the Cuban Cigar Factory on 5th has beer, wine, and cigars. Cigars!

That ought to get you started. I'll be around, and will probably see some of you there. You know, even though I'm a surly bastard who hates crowds and has little use for tourists, I'm almost excited for BlogHer. Almost.

Wordless Wednesday: "Splitscreen - A Love Story"

Consider: this was shot with a cell phone. It's simply great.

 

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Wordless Wednesday: Explosions In The Sky, "Last Known Surroundings"

Running post coming tomorrow. Related: Explosions In The Sky make great running music. Here's their first video. Sit down, strap in, and hold on.

 

Adios, Westeros

I've had a blast recapping HBO's wonderful Game of Thrones over at MamaPop. Here's my take on last night's season finale.  If you haven't seen the show, fear not! HBO is repeating all of the episodes, they're up at HBO On Demand, and you can watch 'em on HBO To Go. And because I'm here to help, you can find all of my recaps in one convenient location.

Spring 2012 cannot come soon enough. Green fire FTW.

 

Wordless Wednesday: Starbucks

Meta.

(via Geekologie)

South By

It's somewhere past Way Too Late on a Saturday night. The high from running Friday's panel on the media and the New American Dad with friend and colleague Craig Heimbuch is still gripping me. ("What does it mean to sound like a dad?", asked by someone in the full room. "It's like jazz", was my reply.) I'm sitting at a table at the epicenter of SXSW Fun, the Driskill, talking to Laura Mayes and Catherine Connors and Jyl Johnson Pattee and Nathan Thornburgh and Caleb Gardner ; their intelligence and humanity are electrifying, like a thumping bass line in my head, stirring my blood like a good backbeat should. Joe Hernandez stopped by for a few minutes - he founded Klout, so naturally I had to ask him what his Klout score was. Earlier that day, I was sitting at a cell phone recharging station and struck up a conversation with the guy next to me. "Where are you from?", he asked. "San Diego," I replied. "Oh, my son goes to San Diego State!" "My alma mater!" The talk to turned to Aztec basketball, then to SXSW - was I here for work, or fun? Both, I said, and told him about the panel I did the day before. He was here for work - Rick Eaton, CFO of Hashable, who then took twenty minutes out of his no certainly busy day to walk me through SXSW's hottest new app. (At one point, he called for help, which came in the form of Hashable CEO Michael Yavonditte, both of them explaining to me what this did, what that did, and it was all I could not to clap my hands in delight. Such moments are geekworthy.) The next morning is Sunday, and I will get up early - "get up", like I've actually slept - and walk the streets of Austin, because when I go to a city for the first time I need to experience it before it wakes, to see what kind of silence it holds. Then I'll head over to a brunch with the PBS Kids production team, the creative minds who could be doing pretty much anything, who opt to make our children's world a little brighter. I'll meet Karen Walrond, and half-jokingly refer to her as a force of nature, but I can think of no better way to describe someone so radiant. I'll fly home, deal with a plane delay that causes me to miss a connecting flight from LA to San Diego, rent a car at LAX at 11:30 at night, make a two hour drive back to the San Diego airport to pick up my car, fall asleep at the wheel at least once, collapse in my bed at 2:45 AM on Monday morning, wake up at 7:30 AM that same Monday morning (have to, because it's my first day at a new job), and spend the next couple of days in a complete fog, battling a horrid case of laryngitis and trying to come up with a way of describing What SXSW Meant To Me. I'm thinking the whole thing was something like jazz. The Mile Davis kind.

In Which I Talk To A Psychic

Internet pal Cecily asked a bunch of people if they wanted to spend 10 free minutes on the phone with a psychic. "OH HELL YES", I replied, with a zeal that prompted me to reply in all caps, a practice I normally abhor. Because I sorta believe in the Spirit World, since Beth and I used to live in a Haunted Apartment. This was years ago, when we lived in one half of a duplex; seems that a few years before we moved in, someone had hung herself in one of the closets in the other half, and her ghost chose to hang out after shuffling off this mortal coil, the duplex being a beachside location, close to some fantastic restaurants and shops...I didn't tell you this? I must have. Things being moved around, cold spots, the feeling that someone was in the room with us...no? Remind me to tell you about it sometime. Suicide ghosts. They bring some Freaky Shit.

So yeah, I'm decidedly agnostic when it comes to such things. Because really, who knows. We think we have it all figured out, and then someone reels in a coelacanth, "discovers" a Lost Tribe living in the Amazon, or realizes, hey, there might be a new giant planet in the Solar System. I figure if noted physicist Brian Greene believes that parallel universes are possible...well, he's infinitely smarter than you or me, so I'll keep an open mind. 

The site is Psychic Source. It's a clearing house, of sorts; you can scroll through the profiles of psychics and pick one that suits you: tarot readers, astrologists, clairvoyants, clairaudients, clairsentients (what do they call people that are clairvoyants and clairaudients and clairsentients? ClairAlls!), mediums,  empaths, spirit guide readers, and at least one member of the X-Men. Per the website, the Psychic Source folks have a rigorous screening process (I envisioned the phone interview: "Hello?" "Hi, is Joe the Psychic there?" "Yes, this is Joe the Psychic, to whom am I speaking?" "Well, Joe, you should've known. Sorry." Click.) And Miss Cleo and Dionne Warwick are not in the lineup.

Ha ha ha. Yeah, I was having a bit of a laugh, reading through the website, but when it came time to call, I was a bit nervous. Because my wife had gotten the same deal, and the results were somewhat fucking creepy. So I picked out a Psychic who looked interesting (she apparently came from a long line of psychics, and had gotten good reviews from callers - the site's like Amazon for paranormals). After I told her my name (when she asked, I was this close to saying "Zuul"), we got down to brass tacks. And honestly, much of what she told me was vague, and really reinforced what most people believe about "psychics" - that they're excellent at reading into what people tell them, making guesses about people's lives that are vague, yet specific enough to give people the impression that the psychic has the ability to divine information about that person's past, present, and future. 

But...

There were a couple of things that got me. The first - her telling me, without any clue or prompt, that I worked with engineers, and that I worked by myself, usually from home. The second - that I would be taking a "big work-related" trip, in about a month, to a convention where I'd meet a bunch of influential people. Yes on both - I do work with engineers, I have a home office, and as you know I'm presenting at both SXSWi and Mom 2.0. Was that a wild guess on the psychic's part? Or did her tarot cards or crystal ball or tea leaves or pigeon guts tell her these things? Who knows. I tend to scoff at religion, and a belief that some Higher Power exists and calls the shots, but at the same time, it'd be kind of cool if there were people who had some sort of power to tell us what the future holds, what pitfalls await us, and what rewards we can expect. At the very least, we'd save a few bucks on movie tickets.

There were some other things she told me. She advised me not to pick Duke to win it all this year. Oh, and it turns out I've been dead since last September. Which explains a lot, actually.

 

 

Allow Myself to Self-Promote...Myself

See that shiny new badge down there? No, past that. Scroll down a bit more. There. The fine folks at Indie Ink are featuring a post of mine today. You should go check it out - not just for me, because the post appeared on this here site last year, so if you're one of the dozen or so people who reads the nonsense I put up here you'll be disappointed, but fear not, because I do plan on sending the fine folks at Indie Ink some ORIGINAL MATERIAL very soon, maybe even some fiction, because I haven't written a short story since college so hey, why not - because there's some tremendous stuff going on there.