the fool twice burned has
at once learned his same mistake
makes him fooled again

every time i pass this machine at work it reminds me of p-diddy...

rebellion takes a
seat outside the dumpster and
bids us a welcome

the shape of light draws my gaze higher, even as i settle in to a few brief moments of rest today.

the weight of all days
measured out in small units
hangs above our heads

click!

(fantastic four 249 - john byrne)

propped up now back on
the block where identity
begs and meets the street

lincoln highway revisited

they say the more things change the more they stay the same. recently one day while driving through our new neighborhood i spotted this sign around the corner from our house. it's a lincoln highway marker showing that our town once hosted part of the original 1913 alignment. traveling west from as far away as times square, nyc this would have been the last stretch before loading a ferry and crossing the bay into san francisco. funny because our old home also paralleled the lincoln as part of the later alignment. a section referred by george wyman, the first man to cross the continent by motorcycle in 1903 as follows "the pastoral aspect of the sheep country gradually gave way to a more rugged landscape, huge boulders dotting the earth and suggesting the approach to the sierras. at rocklin the lower foothills are encountered: the stone beneath the surface of the ground makes a firm roadbed and affords stretches of excellent goings" it seems wherever we go we are in proximity of what they used to call "america's main street".

our grief pours out here
to mix with all life's sorrows
that fall from the sky

engaging in the rest and contemplation of true beauty today.

from left to right we
sweep the curves with eyes closed dressed
like rally hipsters

new and old

time now to re-engage with our toy segment here on the show. my little guy spent all of his hard earned money at Christmas time to get me a new car. it's the 2011 mini cooper s "challenge". and although i'm not a big fan of production racers, i do like this little rally monkey.
and of course it reminded me of where it all started. 1959 earls court motor show introduced the original mini. a revolution in small car motoring at the time. so now i have both. and although the new one may not have that 60's charm and the right hand drive, it does go like the devil.

just hanging around at work today.

our heart of stone now
removed and set aside re-
placed by heart of flesh

a happy 8 bit valentines day from the toastrobot!

"in every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks"

-john muir

eyes gaze on empty
scenes and focus on darkness
giving back blank stares

coach attles reminding us we're all golden and we always got '75!

once again the fan-
tasy slips away replaced
by the losing streak

just trying to stay clean, interesting, inspiring and educational today...

spirit of travel
compelling all forward as
it moves souls further

magic bus

went walking around the grounds of our local japanese gardens recently, and i came across this golden beauty. she looked tired sitting off the road and as i walked around something seemed familiar. and then it hit me. a couple years back i had seen one just like this up in roseville at the old train yard. it was in its full original glory, and you can check it out here. as i understand it these were used to shuttle train passengers from satellite stations back in the 1940's and they certainly have that vintage streamlined look from an era where radios and coffee makers looked ready to propel through the stars. i'm not really sure how this one got separated from the fleet, but these days she looks more like a hippie commune than a glorious streamliner. still, it stirred my imagination toward trips still not taken.

orienting myself once again to the day of rest. look up. everything points higher.

through endless battles
we soldier on under the
eyes of Creator

atari age

i've known about atari age for a while now, but somehow i didn't put 2 and 2 together until just the other day. you see, almost 2 years ago i finally decided to put my own atari lot up for sale. it was a little bittersweet for although i sure didn't need the boxes of consoles and cartridges taking up space in the garage anymore, and had mostly had my fun and was done, my ebay auction didn't yield the result i was hoping for. in fact, to be honest i really lost money on the deal which was the biggest disappointment.

time goes by. sometimes i would hear a song or see an ad in an old comic book that reminded me of those days in the early 80's when i would go over to my best friend's house and play atari for hours. and i missed that a little. so while browsing the atari age website the other day, i was a little surprised to come across an emulator for my mac, and an astonishing collection of roms for the 2600. and the download folders for these take up so little memory. so in no time i had not only replaced every single title i had basically given away in the ebay auction, but was playing games i'd never even heard of.

and in addition to having access to all these fabulous game experiences, atari age is the definitive resource for everything else you would ever want to know about the system including scans of all the ephemera, the instruction booklets, packaging, ads and even a marvel comic series called "atari force". and now i am able to tap into a little bit of that feeling, the memories of long gone days when life just seemed simpler. at my uncle's house in arizona on vacations we would swim all day until we got tired, and then came in and played asteroids or space invaders or missile command until we got the urge to jump back in the pool. and now i'm floating in an 8 bit sea again.

the pleasure of your
company fills this glass to
hold and toast once more

bar-a i d

one of the nice things about having a garage, is that you can put stuff in it. and of course this also means the reverse is true as well. and lately my bride of 15+ years has been taking some of this stuff out. tweaking and fine tuning her kitchen area, our old squirrel made its first appearance back the other day. and then i spotted this. a relic from our honeymoon, we picked this up one day walking through the city of vancouver. it's pressed tin, with this great graphic and typography layout, and a rotary dial for thumbing through all of the different cocktail recipes, most of which i've never heard of.
but that doesn't really matter, because it's endless fun dialing your way through and discovering the secret ingredients for such chemical creations as "gertie's garter" and the "ward 8" (make sure there's grenadine in the house first) and although we're not planning on opening a bar any time soon (although there is one in the garage too) it's just a lot of fun having this little novelty around. when i think about the internet, and all that's available, and i'm sure so many hipsters probably already have some app that would shame our little tin friend, it's alright. because more than anything it reminds me of what was. cool couples shaking and stirring while bossa nova records played in the background. maybe they smiled as the ashtrays filled up and they watched their kids running through the long days of summer backyards. and they drank to forget the pain and agony of memories of a world at war.
(oh, and if you hadn't already noticed- the word "aid" on this guy has a little kerning problem. and if you noticed it, you may have fun giving this little game a whirl as well :^)