still getting over my sickness the past couple of days. even trying to post this is a little difficult. but i am optimistic that i am getting better. thank you doctor!

we roll away the
endless combination of
weekends and time here

yahtzee

my wife and i, we have a little weekend tradition. whenever we get the chance we love to sit down and play a few games of yahtzee. it's a guilty pleasure i know, and enjoyed all the more when the rain is falling outside. we'll put on a record and sit down, and for a little while, it's just the two of us despite the frequent interruptions from smaller people. the set we own is one of these retro revival kind in a wooden box that features an older set of graphics. it promises "an exciting game of skill and chance" and "fun for the entire family".
well certainly it is a lot of fun, and although i recognize the chance element, i am not so sure about the skill on my part. we usually play a rubber match, she and i, splitting the first two games. but more often than not it is she who ends up the victor while i must continually look to become a better sport at losing. i will admit though that there is some skill involved. it's the skill of knowing what the dice are trying to tell you. telling you what they want to be. you serve out a 1, 1, 3, 4, 5 and wonder "should i take a chance and try for that straight? or am i kidding myself? let it come naturally". from the first roll you get a sense of where this is headed. you're either right side up or upside down from the get go.
but if you can hang on, maybe change the odds by turning a bad roll into a full house, you get the feeling that you can do it. paying those rolls upstairs in averages of 3 to try and hit that bonus. trying to balance it all out while letting it ride. no easy task. and every once in a while it all comes together, and you get the feeling it's more skill than chance. but you're just fooling yourself. the dice knows what it wants to be. it's just teasing you along the way.

day like no other
or just another number
never comes again

black friday

as with all of the other retailers today i was open crazy early, fighting back the crowds with hired seasonal security and of course offering insane deals. well, not so much. but there is a new design in the toastrobot store, and a few new additions as well. so stop on by and browse a little and if you don't see anything you like let me know and i'll see what i can do within reason. (i can't afford personal shoppers just yet)
and for the first lucky customer who makes a purchase this holiday season, i'll throw in a little thank you gift from the toastrobot archives. so remember, keep your head. no pushing or shoving. and have yourself a merry little christmas time!

give thanks to the Lord for He is good

work-flo

lull of the night time
rocking me back and forth to
the sweet tunes of sleep

the first step complete
we move on now from here to
the future unknown

go intello!

saturday we went to see our guys take part in their second year of fll competition. fll stands for first lego league which is a robotics competition where teams compete to accomplish different tasks using the lego mindstorms robot. each year's competition features a theme and this year's theme was bio-medical. the teams not only learn to program the robot but must also do research on the theme and come up with a project that fits the theme. my guys' chose to work on knee replacement. the robot tasks are also related to the biomedical theme as the robot had to attempt simulated bone setting, artery stint placement, medication sorting and bad blood cell detection.
last year was their first year and they learned a lot. and this year as the competition grew near it seemd their backs were against the wall in preparartion. on the day of the competition though they showed up. they took a second place award for robot design and first place in robot performance. and now they are heading to the second round of competition. so congratulations intellobricks. great job.

the spirit of your
creativity sweeping
me up to join you

surprised

yesterday was about as good as it gets. i woke to love from my wife and kids who presented me with their handmade gifts. we had breakfast together and then they were off leaving me to keep inventing the day. i watched "let it be" on youtube and then headed out for a quick ride up to weimar via the back roads. the air had a fall chill and there was a haze of fog and smoke as i rode through the scent of burning leaves. i love moving through the old main roads of these towns. past lake arthur and clipper gap. into applegate and heather glen.

and right about there i spotted a graceful doe standing on the road. i slowed for her without the rudeness of tooting my horn, and she slowly moved to the edge of the woods, stopping to look back (i thought at me) before moving out of sight. as i began to accelerate again i caught glimpse of something moving quickly out the corner of my eye. it was a large buck moving to pursue his doe. i could feel his power as he leaped in front of me. my heart felt like somebody had squeezed it and then let go. as i rode back through the same spot later (much more slowly) i noticed the crossing deer sign this time. yeah.
anyway, the rain began to spit lightly as i got close to home. i garaged the bike and came inside to enjoy a cup of tea and a classic movie as the rain fell steadily harder. later barbara and i got to go out alone together for the first time in weeks. we were invited to a surprise party for our friend chelsey. although the rain was still falling and it was getting chillier outside, our little group inside was warming up. the surprise went off seamlessly as chelesy had never suspected a thing.


and our hosts jenni and brian were superb. with a spread fit for kings and beatniks alike, there was no shortage of eye catching decor throughout their home.


upstairs they had created a craft station where we could take our pick of coloring pages from the indie rock coloring book or making felt moustaches or charlie dog magnets. (charlie is kyle and chelsey's pooch)


we stayed until it was time to go, and although it's been a bit of a rough turnaround getting back up at 6 this morning, it really is as letterman used to say "a good kind of tired".

now look away to
distant things vanishing from
the rear view mirror

faces part 005

you called me "electric" and it brought a tear to my eye...

they said i was outdated and i only scoffed at their own immaturity...

did someone say "let's eat"? i'm starved!

we kept watch all night
under this banner of lights
until the dawn came

musical flow

yesterday i was talking to my friend matthew about musical influences that shaped his current tastes. as we talked he sat down and began to diagram it out for me. the ones he could remember, starting with the earliest ones and then moving forward into young adult life. as he brought me up to speed i could see more clearly the threads and links that associated to form a more cohesive line to the kind of stuff he's into now. and it inspired me to do something similar. like that scene in "high fidelity" when todd lousio knocks on john cusack's door and finds him organizing his vinyl. "chronological?" "no" "not alphabetical?" "nope" "what then?" "autobiographical".
i started this little exercise yesterday on a paper sack after our conversation. it quickly filled up and even this latest incarnation pictured above is lacking. but it's a good start. and maybe someday when i've got too much time on my hands and a little warm wine in my belly i'll try and clean it up some. connect the dots a little better. but the real lesson i learned from this was how difficult it becomes to categorize certain sounds. how freely some artists seem to merge with distinct styles and how much cross-pollenization and new hybrid music emerges. and also going back in my mind it began to better frame a complete soundtrack of my life tying certain groups and songs to specific memories.
and at first my instinct was to leave off certain bands that maybe only contained a memory repository of one song. but the more i considered it i felt this was an unfair criteria. i mean how many of us can listen to one song and immediately have it bring back all the memories of one summer or be so tied to an individual from our past as to act like an anthem? sometimes when i hear "come on eileen" by dexy's midnight runners i get this feeling of a time when i was still in high school and it feels like lost innocence. so happy it makes me smile. and i can still smell the vinyl seats in my friend john's vw rabbit and see the leaves falling as we sped through old redwood road at speeds much to great. speeding backward into memory.

today stops to ask
what will tomorrow take from
us and leave behind

taking time to make some homemade pizza to round up the weekend. pizza and a movie. mmm. thatsa' one big pizza pie!

lost dolls 003

some time ago i was downtown at one of my favorite local thrifts, walking without hurry through each aisle filled with so much unwanted tchotchke looking for some hidden treasure when i spotted this little kewpie. she was just sitting there on the shelf between some paperback books and salt and pepper shakers. i grabbed her and brought her home for my bride.
she looked at it with askance and then asked "what am i supposed to do with that?" dismayed, i answered "it's a kewpie. you set it on a shelf and look at it." "huh. i don't want any more junk in the house." "junk! junk? it's a kewpie. you know, like from old timey, like you're my girl and i took you out to the fair or carnival. we walked along the midway until we came to this little booth. i picked up a baseball, 3 for a dollar and knocked the milk bottles over and this is what they gave me. and i gave it to you."


"yeah, but you didn't do any of that." "that's not the point. it's what it represents. it's a kewpie." well the little doll sat on her dresser for a day or two and then it mysteriously disappeared. so mysteriously i hadn't noticed it. and then, just the other day while in the garage i was moving some stuff and there in a metal tray with a lot of my other crappola was this poor little lost doll. i thought i had saved her from the fate of the local thrift, and instead she has been consigned to the dark realms of storage. don't that beat all?

though you are now gone
your deeds not forgotten are
living memories

the toastwalk

just taking the toastrobot out for a little walk today...
(still a work in progress)

i reach out to you
to shake hands in the darkness
unsure if we met

do you believe in the force?

after many weeks of wondering if anybody out there reads this thing, i finally got a comment yesterday on my star wars card giveaway. congratulations to xyloteka for bringing the love. and as promised a handful of vintage 1977 mixed batch star wars trading cards are on their way slowboat to you my friend! apparently there's at least one true believer out there.

falling back again
into familiar rhythms
play us to the beat

nature calling

i stepped outside my door yesterday when my son spotted this praying mantis. he had gotten hold of a grasshopper and was slowly eating his insides. we all got down on our knees and stared at the horror. beautiful. we could hear the crunching sounds and watched as the teeth sawed through the hard outer shell of the grasshopper. occasionally a leg would twitch. i was fascinated at the efficiency of the mantis and at how undisturbed it was by our presence. they really seem to be zen like sometimes. their attitude of prayer calling me to meditation.


and then i remembered that i had seen some glorious fall foliage all around the property earlier and went on a little photo expedition to try and record some of this fantastic transitional beauty.

although it is california, and many of these trees are not native, i'm thankful for these transplants that dot my local landscape like little wildfires this time of year.

and it is so great to have all of these reminders so vividly shouting out that the change is coming again.

an endless maze of
freeways running back and forth
through the world we made

greetings programs

in anticipation of the new tron film, i re-visited the first tron last night. it's really hard to wrap your head around it now, because in so many ways we are all living more and more "inside the machine" these days, but there was a time not that long ago when the barriers between the two worlds were a lot more distinct. i would think for most people now looking back at this film it would seem ancient, crude visually and quite simple. but as i worked my way through the exhaustive supplemental features disc, i was completely awed by the monumental process by which it came about. and in fact in that regard i think it ranks as a one of a kind film which will never be duplicated at that scale. marrying the techniques up to that time of computer technology and traditional film-making, each frame has been laboriously produced.
but aside from the technology and design of this film, i think it's the metaphysical aspect of it that interests me the most these days. director steven lisberger made a comment in one of the interviews, talking about how much of who we are is in computers. that in a sense all of this information is our essence in this digital world. and that really became the basis for the story in this film. and even as i type this i am aware that i am adding to my own meager representation of myself in this world. that i am a "user" and these words in this font on this screen of pre-selected turnkey design are some vague attempt at representing me on this matrix. and then i think of all the masses who now have capabilities to do this very same thing. we no longer have to be "programmers" like high priests in this world. we all have access to the same technology.
and this i think really begins to poke at the larger question. the question of quality that robert pirsig wrestled with in his epic tome. as one of the producers pointed out in an interview, although we all have access now to word processors all of us are not shakespeares. looking back at the 1982 world in tron from both the outside and inside was a nice nostalgic feeling. and as journey sang about "solutions" through the end credits i couldn't help feeling that all of the 80's optimism was lost on me. that although we have created technologies that have brought us closer together, in reality i've never felt more isolated.
maybe it's my inability to adapt as well as the kevin flynn character did in the film. when zapped by the mcp and scanned into the world of the computer, although he has an adjustment period, he quickly learns his way inside this new world. guess i still haven't got it figured out yet.

i left my heart in san francisco

wow. i'm still reeling from all of the excitement of last night's victory. i've just been in a daze. and even a little denial. i guess this is a little what red-sox fans felt like. i'd been waiting a long time to be able to say "the giants are major league baseball's world champions!" and to echo the sentiment of a sign i saw in the small crowd of giant faithful last night, "the torture is over".
and i guess it's hard for me to believe that this is the year. when i think back over the long list of greats to play for this team, mays, mc covey, cepeda, alou, marichial, clark, mitchell, thompson, williams, krukow, kent, nen, beck, schmidt, and bonds just as a sampling, i'm still dumbfounded that these are my guys. guys like freddy sanchez, aubrey huff and edgar rentereia. to be certain though, it was our pitching that won this thing. linncecum, cain, sanchez, bumgarner and the bullpen including brian wilson's magnificent beard which deserves its own spot in the rotation.
although i wasn't around in 62 for that special brand of torture, i can still clearly remember the unusually warm weather in 89 as i sat listening to will clark make the final out against the cubs to win the pennant and send the giants to the world series that year in a bay area exclusive. and of course it seemed as if God Himself intervened in that game 3 to give the a's a chance to reset their 1-2 starters. in 02 it seemed as if they were marching to destiny's tune again, only to have their hopes ripped out on that field in anaheim while the stupid rally monkey danced and mocked us.
and then, this year. what the heck? although i believed they would win the west, i honestly had no expectations they would go any further. and yet as each game passed, and we moved higher up the mountain together i began to believe that it was possible. not certain but possible. and what a wonderful door that opens up, the possible.
and now it is all over. and i think back now to all those games in the past. all the good times and the bad ones too. all of the conversations on barstools and buses and bart trains. all the speculation. the hopes. and the despair. i have been to the heights and the depths with this team. and though there is always a little sadness to me at the passing of the baseball season, this year there will be no bitter dregs to suck on all winter long. only a long lasting warm feeling in our bellies as we sit by the fire and count the days until spring is here again.

and now we straddle
the harried horse of monday
wails to ride our song