Huzzah challenged fans!

We are finally done our CD and will be having a giant fun CD release show on November 26th at the Talking Head.

That’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving so you’ll have two full days of gluttonous recovery before the show.

We’ll get back to you when all the details are shored up but make sure you hold that date now and mark it down and make necessary travel arrangements as flights will start to fill up once the word hits the street if you take my meaning.

Stay mysterious,
-CC

Challenge-club.com

I spied this in a parking garage in Silver Spring today, tucked under the driver’s-side windshield wiper of a non-descript blue Ford Explorer.

The only good
hunter is …

A DEAD
hunter!!

Masterful use of the ellipsis and double-exclamantion-points. Handwriting analysis says female to me but I could be wrong. A pro could probably trace the shape of the T, D, and H strokes to a decade and a region of the country in which the person was instructed in the arts of writing - I’m going to pull for the 1960’s if not earlier but can’t place a region.

I saw nothing indicating that the owner of the truck was in fact, a hunter. The owner could be named Hunter and this is a personal death threat. Ideally, the Hunter is actually named Dead Hunter – if true this note can be taken as a love note.

UPDATE:

As I was backing out, I snagged a shot of the front license plate. The picture sucks but it says HUNTER Ford, NC with mountains on either side, black on yellow - looks like a dealer plate.

Google shows that there are a handful of dealerships in Henerson, NC that the Hunter family owns.

What a moron.

Did you document how often the six year old piece of crap you are forced to use at the office crashes?

I mean really document it.

Like, every single crash.

Sometimes you have to have patience.

For a while, I was driving to a nasty client pretty regularly in DuPont (not the above pictured at all) who had thrown out multiple other techs, and literally slammed doors in my face before because AOL wasn’t working for her. I saved every single parking garage windshield number that I got when going there and had them hanging in my cubicle. I felt like they were hash marks just under the canopy of my fighter jet or something:

Like this:

|||||||

I’m talking confirmed-kills here. Like this:

Take that printer-not-working! Bomb’s away downed-Verizon-line! Computer that doesn’t work but is really just asleep? I have your number!

So yeah, it got silly. I started keeping parking and valet tags from other places and hanging them as well. Sure, they might not be confirmed-kills but it made the signs on my metaphorical fighter look hardcore. That lasted for a few months at most. I’m over it.

I lack discipline.

Floor to ceiling. The man has since gotten a new machine. The list is gone. It has not been replaced.

I wanted to frame it as a reminder of whatever artistic deconstructionist metaphor that one feels like making of it, because it can be interpreted so many ways, but it was likely just trashed.

Or he framed it.

Before I got my current job, I was temping answering phones. Literally, the receptionist / typist / data entry monkey at an auto-loan subsidiary of Ford. Every car-salesman’s name and dealership that called was noted on a half-sheet pad before I put him on hold or attempted to transfer him/her, in blue ball-point. After transfered, I’d cross out the name and dealership in red ball-point. I kept it orderly, but not names in a row, just ever line is more or less parallel.

No, of course my system wasn’t that refined on my first day. I started it on nearly the last week of my placement there. I have four of these five-year-old sheets, saved for framing. Should make for quite the conversation piece eh?

Cheers to url123 for innovating slightly improving upon tinyurl’s service. I’ve switched.

Just bought two tickets for Amanda and I.

Medeski Martin & Wood
Friday, 11/11/05
9:00PM EST
9:30 Club

On the way to meet up staff from one of my clients for a happy hour in Silver Spring, we got caught in a terrible thunderstorm halfway through the four block walk. Street lights were swinging and signs were swaying. Sasha, Will and I made for the closest awning - the front door of the Discovery Building on Georgia Avenue.

We were waiting for the rain to not be a torrential downpour when we spotted a dog, running the wrong way up Georgia Ave, in the center of a two lane stretch, right in front of us.

Me: Get that dog!
Sasha: :flashfact:

His collar proclaimed him to be Henry, a Silver Spring resident. Sasha crackberry’d out to the internet to determine that Henry’s house was six blocks or so away. We called the number listed and left messages. I rigged my belt for use as a collar. We left further messages. Henry’s owner must be stuck in traffic we thought.

Henry was very old.

Henry was soaked, and shivering.

Henry was given a bowl of water by someone inside the locked Discovery Building but didn’t touch it.

Finally the rain stopped. Henry was standing between the three of us and beer, taco’s, and better smelling company.

We took him with us.

If you are a single guy and don’t have a dog, you might look into it. Everyone was very impressed with our simple charity and the staff let us tie Henry up to a bench out front. We checked on him ever 5 minutes or so, he was given a cup of water, and we continued leaving messages.

Two hours later, Will’s phone rang. Henry’s owner was on the way!

The owner had gotten home from a business trip before the rain started and gone inside to greet the family while at the same time letting old Henry out to the back yard. When the storm started, Henry lost his wits and jumped the fence. The owner had been driving the neighborhood for hours and came home to the power out, unable to listen to our answering machine messages. When the power returned, he got the good news.

This is probably my favorite fax of all time:

Sent to work by a client of mine after her Windows 95 (yeah 95, I said it) PC froze up after I’d recommended that they not use it at all / replace it.

(10.4.3 fixed my ability to pull images off my phone using bluetooth, lot of catchup posting to do)

The invite just came my way, this will be my third year going…

Santas Past, Present and Future,

Once again it’s that wonderful time of year. Oh yes! The time of year which compels dozens of ordinary* Men to don a Santa Suit and make complete fools of themselves while at the same time harassing, molesting, tormenting and generally mistreating the good citizens of Baltimore. And this is all done in the name of Christmas.

Allow me to shed some light on this Grand Event. As a youth, my favorite day of the year was arguably Christmas Day. I’d be excited for weeks in advance, dreaming about what wondrous gifts might be wrapped up under the tree with my name on them. As I got older that excitement slowly wore off. I feared I had become jaded and pathetic; a Christmas Grinch.

Enter a man I’ll call M. Lee. No, that’s too revealing. I’ll instead refer to him as Mike L.

Mike was a mentor of mine at work and he told me about an all-day, all-night party that I had to attend. I was dubious as to how fun this could really be. ‘All guys? For 13 hours? We have to sing carols and wear Santa Suits? I don’t know.’ He left the ball in my court with this remark: 'It’s the best party I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to ‘em all.’ I respected his opinion and decided to give it a try.

- Fast-forward 7 years -

December 3 will bring SANTA CRAWL once again to the city of Baltimore. Often imitated but never re-created, this is an event you cannot miss. We’re 5 weeks away, and I’ve got that same giddiness and
butterflies-in-the-stomach I felt as a kid. What havoc will occur this year? Who won’t make it til midnight? How many fifths of booze will be brazenly heisted from under-staffed bars when thirsty (and frugal) Santas roll in?

I don’t know, and I can’t wait to find out.

Word in the North Pole is that some of the Original Santas are making a retro appearance. This is excellent news for The Crawl. These are the same trail blazers who brought The Crawl to Baltimore after a riot erupted in Philly. The same depraved pioneers who have gone home with toothless women from Dundalk and passed out in minivans left for a valet to park. In short, your heroes will be there. Don’t miss this opportunity to shed your better half and dedicate a day to complete debauchery. More to come…

Santa * it takes extraordinary testicular fortitude to participate in such an endeavor, so don’t fool yourself into believing any “ordinary” man can be a Santa.

And the obligatory halloween gallery. Cop-out last minute costume: Pick a uniform already in the house somewhere and go as that.

Ben made a great Oompah Loompah - inspiration for next year.

For comparison:

Now for the Santa Crawl!

Cheers. I don’t go to bars that I can’t walk home from without a designated driver. I’ve got no idea how incapacitated I would be at .08 as I’ve never blown.