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i swear it was like jonestown this morning on the marta. EVERYONE was sleeping. i love it when the north springs train is right behind the doraville train because it is almost empty as was the case this morning. i got on the train at five points and quickly noticed that a full 80 per cent of the car was asleep. seriously. this trend continued on the 140, where bwd had fallen asleep (he was back on the 7:30 bus - must be following me) and i even noticed skull cap guy, who intriguingly has not been wearing the skull cap lately, had fallen asleep too.

not on the #9 headed in this morning though. jeff and leroy were back together and carrying on quite a conversation about downsizing. actually like most j&l conversations this one consisted primarily of jeff talking and leroy signaling assent with a well times “ummmm hmmmmm.”

i’ve started playing a game on marta now which is to track how long i can make it before the loud sound of someone else’s music forces me to put on my headphones. i did good to day making it past the mansell park-and-ride before my benchmate stopped talking on the phone and started playing music. still the whole #9 ride, the whole train ride and half the time on the #140 isn’t too bad.

my buddy jamsmooth recently experimented with taking marta from east atlanta to his office near claremont and i-85. i was pretty neat to see him do this. i have been bugging him about it for sometime and he finally went for it. the whole thing took him longer that it probably should have and he asked me for some advice in how to cut the commute time down.

i thought i’s post what i would have written in an email here so everyone could see it. most important i think is just being a veteran. once you get it down, you know when you have to be on one bus in order to ensure you catch another; you learn the trips to shave minutes to ensure that you don’t miss a bus - like which exit to leave the station from, which car to get on in the train to be dropped off right at the stairwell, etc. this really just comes with time and experience. i remember how disoriented i was when i started.

also it helps to know the routes that go near where you are going. while the #9 drops me off right outside my door, the 107, 34, 37 and 21 all are within a 10 minute walk. knowing these routes helps me to plan my own routing. the atrain site is great but it doesn’t always give you the most optimal routing.

so there you go, jamsmooth. stick with it and soon you will be a pro.

also, to everyone interested in riding marta check out commenter cooliojones’s smarta marta fourms. not off the gorund yet, but a great idea. plus, coolio rides the #140 with me, even though i still am not quite sure who he is.

God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.*

---

And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be
In the arms of all I’m keeping here with me.*

---

Thank you, Jeff Mangum.

I was out the door a bit early this morning and caught this sermon (remember my curious radio preacher addiction?) by Andy Stanley. Unfortunately I only had about 12 minutes of listening time before I was out of the broadcast... Tim Mason

So, over the past three days our home DSL account through Earthlink has been averaging 15 IP addresses a day. Considering that I've worked from home the past two days and have had, or rather should have had, a...

The kids were in their pajamas when they met me at baggage claim last Sunday.

The coy and devilish Rooster repeatedly pulled her pajama shorts up to flash her butt cheeks at me.

She thought this was hilarious.

I felt surreal saying,

“We don’t show our naked bottom to people at the airport.”

Besides it being obvious, it made me feel like a caricature.

[I am a cartoon mom!]

It also seemed like WAY too literal a thing to say.

I half expected The Mayor to challenge me...

“Can we show our naked butts at the grocery store? How about at the post office?”

I felt slightly guilty suggesting she keep her but in her pants.

I mean, she does come by the urge naturally.

I seem to hang my ass out (at least figuratively) (and sometimes literally, though clothed) all the time.

I can hardly point a finger at Rooster when I'm the one convincing online friends to accompany me to a condemned women's bathhouse to get all naked.

[Oh, hai! I met you on the Internet, want to get naked?!]

There is, however, a line I have to draw.

The Rooster is forever pulling up her shirt and showing off her chest.

I'm telling you right now that girl is NEVER going to New Orleans.

Fafblog is back! “But the ape authorities rejected the message of Gorilla Jesus, cause their hearts were hard and their minds were closed and they couldn’t tell what he was sayin cause they were all just a buncha gorillas,” says Giblets. “And so they tried an convicted Gorilla Jesus of heresy an witchcraft an they sentenced him [...]

Even our wins suck: tonight, Chipper injures his left hammy and Huddy comes out early with elbow tightness. Beyond the emergence of JJ and Jorge, has anything gone right this year? --CB

The first time I went to Parish was about a month ago. C-Dub and met our buddy, Randy, there while we was on a dinner break from Dad's Garage. We got there right when they opened that evening and practically had the restaurant to ourselves. This, of course, meant that I was able to get many pictures of Parish's beautiful dining room.


I really enjoyed my dinner that night - the Georgia farm fresh vegetable plate. It probably would have been too salty for some but for me, the saltier the better!


This past weekend, we hit up Parish again to celebrate the birthday of my friend, Julie. Our reservations were at 7pm on Friday and it was considerably more crowded.


C-Dub and I started out with a few appetizers before our meal. I got the Sunflower Salad, so named because it is styled after a sunflower. (I didn't see it.) C-Dub got the Crispy Oysters Rockefeller.

The salad was alright. It didn't blow my mind or anything but I did enjoy the crispy sunflower seeds sprinkled throughout.

For dinner, I took the safe route and got the Georgia Farm Fresh vegetables again. The veggies were good but not as delicious as the last time I ordered it simply due to the difference in vegetables between the two visits. I just loved the sweet potatoes and swiss chard in the previous dish. The abundant tomatoes in the veggie plate this time just weren't doing it for me.


At the end of the night, our waiter (who was great, by the way) brought Julie a slice of Georgia Peach & Pecan Bread Pudding for her birthday. It seems like there is a pudding trend in restaurants now and I am loving it. Num, num, num, num, num! (That is the sound of me eating all the puddings you put in front of me.)

After a few glasses of sparkling Rose, I can only tell you that peach and pecan pudding was delicious but I can't go into the intricacies of that deliciousness.

I haven't written off Parish, yet - that Red Fish alone warrants another visit. And I still have to try the market in the basement!

A chance to see an awesome kids' artist on his way through Atlanta sounds like a great idea, right? A free, impromptu concert in the park? What a perfect outing for a Saturday afternoon. A chance to stick my head out from under this rock and make a social appearance as The Lovely Mrs. Davis? I'm there. Knowing that some cool friends will be there? Icing on the cake.

The Jellydots' new release (which happens to have been produced by Bryan Townsend) has been getting lots of rotation in the minivan lately. My kids especially love the song "Art School Girl." So much so, in fact, that 3-year-old Ralph believes Art School Girl is also the name of the album AND the band. (And this is probably a good time to point out that the Jellydots are not so much a band as a really talented and visionary guy, the Apple program GarageBand, and, occasionally, a handful of other seemingly interchangeable musicians. Kind of the Steely Dan of kids' music.)

So off we went on Saturday afternoon to see the Jellydots in concert at a local park. I explained to my family that it would be more like a single Jellydot -- mastermind Doug Snyder -- and probably not an actual band of Jellydots. Because of his continued insistence that we were going to see "Art School Girl" and my lengthy explanation of Jellydot versus JellydotS, I think Ralph had gathered that we were headed out to see a creative young woman with handfuls of candy.



Add to this that we had already endured enjoyed two fairly major activities that day -- a rocket-building workshop at 10 am and a screening of the 3-D movie Fly Me to the Moon at noon. It turns out a trip home after the movie to regroup, change shirts, and chill with Legos was not quite enough to re-energize and re-focus my children.

So imagine my joy when we arrive at the park for the Jellydot concert, begin chatting with my friends, and my children begin "fritzing" -- the way your TV and lights begin to cut in and out just before a complete power outage. It was at this moment that I realized we'd forgotten to bring any water. Never mind that it's 90 degrees out and it's 4 pm on a napless afternoon. I was bound and determined that we would have fun. As my dad (the Yogi Berra of parenting) used to say, "You're going to like this whether you like it or not."

And I was making an APPEARANCE! I could not be bothered with fussy, tired, dehydrated children. See?



We got a quick backstage tour from Bryan (where backstage = the picnic bench a few yards away, from which the Jellydot would be performing), chatted with Doug for a bit, then spread our blanket on the grass front and center. Jim took Ralph to the swings while we waited for the show to start. I tried to convince Walter that this would be the BEST THING EVER and that he'd better start to have fun OR ELSE.

How could the lovely children of The Lovely Mrs. Davis possibly be seen at a kiddie rock show in such a state of misery?



Like this.

Finally, the music started.



Surely my children will snap out of their funk and sing along with the Jellydot, I insisted to myself. Perhaps they will even dance. After Walter spent the first three songs glaring at the Jellydot and grunting at me, and Ralph asked to go back to the swings, I would have settled for smiles and a bit of toe-tapping.

Luckily, my children's lack of enthusiasm didn't stop the Jellydot from putting on a fabulous show.



As an encore, he sang "Art School Girl." And my sons actually clapped. Briefly. Then they fought in the back seat all the way home.

But the funny thing is, they've mentioned numerous times since then how GREAT it was to see the Jellydot in the park. And as I began writing this post, with the Jellydots CD playing on my computer, Walter came up and said, "Hey, we heard that song over the weekend! At that concert! That was so AWESOME!"

Yes, Walter, it was. I'm glad you realize that now.

More photos here. Gwyneth's recap and photos here.

as to whether Bret Favre plays this year for the Packers, Minnesota, or an Atlanta flag football team.

He’s all the rage on ESPN and other sports channels these days. The august Commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodall, has opined that the matter of his status should be resolved before training camp starts this weekend.

For those of you that don’t know the ins and outs of this matter, don’t worry, it isn’t important. Focus your attention on the fact that Senator McCain has accused Senator Obama of wanting to “lose a war rather than lose a political campaign.” Other than the fact that the statement is nonsensical, it appears that we are fully into the silly season of the campaign. Say and do anything and see if it sticks.

Come to think of it, it is kind of like following sports news.

My SuperFriend™ Dr. Matthew Metz was on the front page of the Denver Post yesterday.

In the nine months Dr. Matthew Metz has been with the Colorado Bariatric Surgery Institute, he has repaired eight gastric-band surgeries done in Mexico, including J.'s.

They even ran a big pic of him.



I keep telling him to wear more flattering outfits, but he never listens.

I ran over a duck on the way to work. The little quack was taking his time crossing the street. I thought that I could scare him with intense speed and engine revving. I was wrong. He barely had time to flap his wings before my tire sent his entrails rocketing through his mouth and [...]

I think I was channeling this over the weekend when I stopped into Grimey’s in Nashville and picked up a couple old ‘Mats and solo records of Paul Westerberg’s…

Paul Westerberg (formerly of The Replacements) releases “49:00″ for only 49 cents on Amazon. More story on this is on Billboard.

Buy “49:00″ here.

CHEAPEST. REKKID. EVA.

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This is a must read article for anyone who plays drums or is thinking about it. According to the article rock drummers burn 400 to 600 calories per hour, as much as a premier footballer.

I don’t think drummers can run marathons and I don’t think marathoners could play at Neil Peart’s level for 10 minutes. So there may be some truth to the study.

In my case factor in the loading in and out of all the gear and I’ve got a full on workout.

I’ve gotta tell ya, filming a Courteous Mass wasn’t all that interesting because nobody got into any trouble, but I might still find time to make an extended remix for elsewhere.

Video source.

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If the summer drought of good television is making you sad, well you are in luck, because one of the best shows ever made is now out, for the first time in Region one DVD goodness, as of today!!! That’s right ladies and gents, the one and only Spaced, starring the loves of my life Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, has finally crossed the pond, in a format that the less than tech-savvy masses can ingest.

If you enjoyed either Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, you will love Spaced, because both had roots in the show. The show is only two seasons long, but it is chock full of laughs, and is one of those programs that you can literally watch over and over again. Each episode has so much to it, that it really feels longer than a 30 minute comedy romp. Also, for all of you geeks out there, this is THE show that will speak to you; it is written by geeks for geeks pretty much.

While I already have it, because I bought it a while back on Region 2 DVD (when I got my fancy schmancy region free DVD player), I am more than pleased to see it is finally out on this side of the pond. (Speaking of formats… if someone could hook me up with the ipod version of the entire series, I would be ONE HAPPY CAMPER… hint hint…).

I am, however, sad that I wasn’t in NYC this week, because apparently, Nick and Simon are doing press tours, and NYC is one of the stops (I think that I would go into a gay frenzy if I got to meet either of them). Oh well… maybe some day. Either way, do yourself a favor and pick up one of my favorite shows on DVD, so you can make it one of your favorites too… it is truly a masterpiece of television.