I scrunched my face in the most painful possible way for my brothers new digicam, and I thought it would be fun to turn it into an avatar for everybody to enjoy. Yes, my skin is red... I am telling you I don't tan, I burn!

So yeah, (e:joshua) has been living in the proverbial basement lately, keeping his head down and grinding through some work and fun. I guess you could say that the past few weeks have been busy beyond belief. When I'm not travelling I am in Buffalo working at my company's office, OR I'm doing some leisure yet non-leisure travelling because of previous commitments. When your job requires you to travel a lot, travelling on the weekends, even for a short trip, is HIGHLY undesirable. Most people hear about what I do and say things like "OMG SO COOL!" and "Wow you get to see so many places!" Yeah, thats true, but think about it - taking a vacation requires travel... so how am I supposed to look forward to vacation? For me, vacation has to satisfy one of two requirements - A) The destination has to be FAR as hell away, like cross one of the two big oceans far, and/or B) Vacation for me = staying at home in bed.

So anyhow its interesting to me that (e:paul) has been having a dialogue with BuffaloPundit. Yeah, I saw that he was butthurt a little over me calling him liberal, but hey... whatever. Unbeknownst to him (or perhaps knownst?) he had an e-mail convo with me and I have to say that he seems like a nice guy and not too much unlike me with respect to his concern for our locality. One thing that I know for certain is that there are a lot of concerned people on all political sides who can't stand the apathy here. Unfortunately, if you read about last weeks Democratic primary for Mayor... it looks like the apathy continues or perhaps has gotten worse. What are we to do when we can't change because so many people don't care? We work harder dammit!!

Speaking of the mayoral race - there are other candidates besides Byron Brown on the Democratic ticket that I prefer. My thing is, it looks like we are going to pick between Brown and Helfer... I think Brown is going to win but its just going to be another vote for the status quo. I'm sure he is a sincere guy, but when I see "former NYS Senator" on the resume I get extremely nervous. I think its about time our area had a mayor that is from outside the same noxious political sphere that we are used to at this point. At this point I don't care if its a Democrat or a Republican... I need something different. That being said, you can probably guess which way I'm voting. I'm pencilling in either Bill Crosby or J.C. Watts.

SCREEEEEEEECH!

Problem solved, hopefully we'll have the car later on today. I'll let (e:jason) decide if he wants to disclose the how's and why's. Now I want to drink out of joy! I have some relatively important shit to do at work but they don't want me to be there while I'm distracted with this. Anyhow at least we have a starting point, and hopefully this thing will be back in our hands soon! Definitely relieved.

The Larsonmobile got stolen overnight, out of the lot adjacent to Wilson Farms and Globe Market. If you see a 1997 Plymouth Breeze with the license plate # APV4031 PLEASE call the police and report that you saw it!

My boss came all the way down from Clarence to pick me up for work... he saw my brother and I and simply told me to stay home and fix this. The police and the private number listed on the board next to the lot do not have the car. We've filed a report and are hopeful that the vehicle can be recovered.

My father is leaving work and driving to Buffalo this morning... (e:jason) and I are just smoking cigarettes and contemplating getting hammered. If you see two drunk guys on the 750 porch this afternoon you will know why!

I've been staying in Buffalo and working out of the office... the company has a backlog of audit documents to verify. Therefore Joshy gets to work his fingers frantically around the hefty Compaq laptop there to get the documents sorted out. In a way not travelling is nice because I get to sort out things at home I don't get an opportunity to do normally. I spent the last two days strolling the office, staring out the window, surfing the web, drinking coffee, petting my bosses golden retriever, thinking about the noise reduction headphones I want to buy, reading e-mails. I actually will have some real and substantial work to do the rest of the week, followed by more real and substantial work to do beginning next week, followed by a short trip to NC and Delaware.

I tried port wine last night... its my new favorite thing! Nothing will ever top a rocks glass filled with a proper single malt scotch though.

(e:paul) - I took the sign down because I'm having major beef with my landlady and I didn't want to give her another thing to potentially bitch about. Is there voting for this "best of" and when is it over? I'll hang it until the "best of" issue is out.

So, in the interest of seeing what the blog is up against for "Best Of" category I decided to inspect the other sites to see what "we" are up against.

1. buffalopundit.com - interesting blog. I like the focus on local issues since most people don't give a shit about it around here, or at most feign interest in order to maintain "street cred." Its maintained by a liberal who doesn't mind letting partisanship get in the way of the real debate on occasion. However, I will give him credit for being consistant on local and state government corruption. This guy hates Byron Brown.

2. buffalo rising - I'd put this blog a couple notches on top of buffalopundit. Why? Because its focused solely on local issues and filters out the local political bullshit that all of us are freaking tired of. I'd even use the word "awesome" to describe the sites content and design... kudos to whoever manages that thing.

Checking out the local blogsites reminds me of how I'd love to join WNY Coalition for Progress if it wasn't so jawdroppingly, blatantly politically insane. Nonpartisan my ass... I mean really... to even suggest such a thing as they do in their "About Us" link is laughable. I would absolutely love to be part of their WNY Developent and Economic Affairs group... what a shame. Are there any REAL non-partisan groups out there to join?

The fest is on, the sign is up, and my block is taken over by a bunch of hippies and older folks buying knick knacks. Its cool though.

But seriously though, tie dye is waaaaay played out.

I'm back from California... its the only place I visit that I'm sad when I leave. I came back with some color though!

My apartment is a freakin' war zone... its in dire, dire shape. I'm never around to take care of it so eventually I have to suck it up and take like 4 hours of my precious Buffalo time to get it right. The best part of the project is going to be when I throw my old couch over the side of the porch.

I have mixed feelings on the Elmwood Art Festival. For two days my block is flooded with people and there is nowhere to park. This is why once the car is parked it ain't moving until the festival is gone.

P.S. Is now the perfect time to hang up the elmwoodstrip.com sign (e:paul)? I have no idea why Jay didn't hang it up before but I think with the festival and all it should be proper time to get some exposure.

For those of you who have never tried them - Jet teas from Spot are the best non-bean based thing on their menu hands down. I thoroughly encourage trying strawberry-banana or cran-raz. You'll thank me later with a small sack of green stuff to share... right? RIGHT?!

I think I leave again Tues. but I'm not sure. Until then I'm going to be bunkered up at 750. And no, my apt. will still probably not be clean.