GUNS GUNS GUNS BIKES BIKES

Holy Balls, Bill Cosby is Awesome

2009-06-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

Old, but awesome.

Al Gore, Eat Your Heart Out

2009-03-23T23:02:00.001-07:00

A young man desired to be greener
With regard to the use of his peener,
He's a sexual lion
Thanks to lithium ion
and his output is ten percent cleaner.

GREETINGS: a Stupid Letter I Wrote at Age 14 and Just Found in a Box

2009-03-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

GREETINGS COMRADE UNIT

Salutations to you, Earthling Chum Unit Known as "Jason". I apologize for the delay in correspondence. I was engaged in time-consuming activities such as orally removing the extra growth of specially hardened skin cells from the extremities of my digits and engaging in a popular physical activity in which armor-clad members of an organized squad propel themselves in various directions in random formation in order to transport an air-filled fragment of bovine epidermis across a line located approximately 45.72 meters from the center axis dividing the playing field into two parts of equal area and to reduce as many similarly armor-clad members of the opposing squad as possible to masses of skin and fragments of fractured bone material with a consistency similar to that of chunky salsa.

I would prefer that the location of your current residence was in closer proximity to my dwelling area, in relation to its actual location, which is a desolate land mass known by its inhabitants as "Colorado". If it were so, more frequently would my sense organs make me conscious of your presence and the time period during which the approximate section of our planet on which we are located faces the star Sol more directly, resulting in increased atmosphere temperature and lengthening periods of physical inactivity, would exhibit heightened enjoyment for many individuals, including myself.

I am anxiously awaiting my arrival at an educational facility of a more heightened educational level than I was previously accustomed to experiencing. At this educational facility, I will be a component of a squad involved in the aforementioned popular physical activity.

I desire that the period that you will spend at your local educational knowledge acquiring facility is enjoyable, as will be the custom of the introducing of underclassmen to the stimulating realm of waste receptacles.

Your Companion On This Terrestrial Body,
The Earth Person Known as Nate

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER

-----

Yes, I was a huge nerd. Thanks for noticing.

NATE GETS DRUNK AND REVIEWS THE MUMMY 3: CURSE OF SOMETHING SOMETHING EMPEROR

2008-12-26T04:55:00.000-08:00

THE MUMMY 3 is fucking awful.

i sweat ro vishnu, this is some seriously bad shit, and i say taht as someone who has a deep love of awful cinemas. I'm about as runk as I get, and I'm almost to the end of this fuckiing thing,, and i want to punch someone for making me watch ths, AND I OWN COOL AS ICE.

I just watched Death Race,m and that was citizen mothyjerfucking kane compared to this horseshit.

So I'm pretty sure there's no generic adventure movie cliche that Mummy 3: The Fufking Goddamn Dragon Enmperor has no utilized.

Step one: really bad guy is really bad a long time ago, gets cursed with a curse that imprisons him forever, UNLESS SOMEONE HAPPENS O AWAKEN HIM, IN WHICH CASE HE IS NGH UNfuckingSTOPPABLE. You know, because we lost the page in the spellbook that contained the STAB HIM IN THE FUCKING FACE AND KILL HIM curse, whoich would have been a no brainer here.

Step 2: millenia later, archaeologist digs up statue emperor who has been ingeniously entombed, despite no one liking him when he was an asshole despot. Also, there is a seccret society dedicated to awakening asshole emperor for vague world domination purposes, naturally. And there's a super ninja trying to keep emperor unfound, and super ninja turns out, naturally, to be hot girl.

step 3: dude (brendan fraser) is brought out of retirement to transport fancy artifact because he's the fucking best or whatever, abd vbecause we couldn'yt think of a smarter way to justify Brendan Fraser's presence here, which makes no sense because the archaeologist who digs up the emperor is his son, except senor fraser is clerly not old enough to have a 20 something year old son, and also rachel weisz's character is played by some other bitch who is clearly not raches weisz and FUCK THAT, seriously, 'cause she totally humped that guy in enemy at the gates and that was HOT.

step 3: bad guys hve plan that is the most insanely complex, easily defeated thing ever. Find statuefied emperor, find one of a kind jewel artifact thingy which has to be unlocked with blood from someone with a pure heart or qwhatever, and contains the water of life or some fucking thing, and then pour water of life on the emperor to bring him back to life. They were even going to revive the wrong guy, but the good guy kicked it out of bad guy's hand, and it landed on some other petrified asshole, who turned out to be THE ACTUAL EMPEROR WHAT THE FUCK OH NO HE LIVES GODDAMMIT WHY WHY WHY NOOOOOO

step whatever: Emperor fuckface takes off imexplicably in chariot, prompting nonsense and totally unnecessary chase scene. he could have stuck aroudn and just killed everyone. Dude can control the elements with the his fucking mind, and also he's jet fucking li and so he could just straight up ninja stab all of our bumbling asshole protagonists and stroll out of there, no biggie. Now he has to take other priceless artifact to mystery shrine in himalayas and it will show him the way to shangri-la. Why? fuck you, I'll get to that. So he starts hauling ass there. Our heroes have to chse him there, and they know a pilot who's the best ever, and just crazy enough to try it. no stupid cliche there, no sirree, never heard anything like it.

Anyway, the good guys get there first, abnd somehow know exactly what the emperor's plan is--he has to stick stupid artifact thingy into a tiny delicate cradle at the top of a 20-foot pillar, and that will lead him to shangri-la, which will put us one step closer to OH NOO DOOM. So all we need to do is send a dude up the pillar with a simple hammer and BINK knock the cradle off its perch and BINGO PROBLEM SOLVED FOREVER, but NOOOO, plan A is to wait for emperor and his lackeys to show up and then SHOOT THEM WITH GUNS, and the bckup plan is to blow up the pillar with loads of explosives that have 20-foot fuses that give the emperor, who, by the way, has control of the VERY ELEMENTS OF NAtURE, like half an hour to put out the fuses by throwing some snow on them.

continued after one more drink where is rum

----------

RUM FOUND

So as any asshole could have predicted, fraser and son's plans totally failed to stop jet li from strolling up and sticking Artifact B into cradle B, which pointed a laser to lead us to Shangri-La, where emperor jet li jumps into the jacuzzi of life and gains the power to raise his shitty 2000 year old army and turn into some kind of stupid dragon. A 3 headed dragon. Who still totally fails to kill a couple of totally ordinary stupid humans, who will somehow end up foiling his plans at the end. Oh, I'm sorry, was that a spoiler? Fuck you.

Step FUCK YOU: So he raises his long-dead statue army, who for some reason will only become awesome after crossing the Great Wall of China. Why? Fuck you, I don't know why and neither did the screenwriter. There's just no fucking reason for it other than to give us anotreh 20 minutes of CGI statues marching toward a wall against our 3 regular shmos and another army of long-dead victims of Emperor Fuckyou, who have revived for just this occasion.

Oh, also the super crazy pilot who is the best is named Mad Dog. Seriously? Mad Dog? Good fucking Lord.

Anyway, we end up in an underground temple for no good reason, and Encino Man and his son manage to team up and stab the emperor in the heart with the one mystical sword that can kill him, despite the established fact that Emperor Jet Li is a super ninja who can kill 4 trained armed assassins at the same time without breaking a sweat, and the entire extended Fraser family are imcompetent at FUCKIGN EVEYTHING. Then all the awakened armies dissolve into dust so we don't have any awkward shit 6to tie up, and the movie ends with everyone sustaining injuries no worse than a basic black eye.

I had to go back to the kitchen and mix up like 4 more drinks and then start the movie over again to finish thuis shit WHAT THE FUCK.

RATING: DO NOT SEE. DO NOT THINK OF SEEING. IF YOU WROTE THIS SREENPLASY I WILL PUNCH YOU HARD ECAUSE YOU ARE BAD

I'm Easily Entertained

2008-08-31T00:45:00.000-07:00

Very easily entertained.

Created by Piter Wilson's webcam stop-motion thingy. Go, make your own or see what other people have made!

stupid haiku: More Like Emozilla, am I right?

2008-08-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

I am Godzilla
No one appreciates me
stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp

I'm not an actor, but I played one on HBO.

2008-08-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

I am White Trash Man, starting at 0:11.

I can't believe they bleeped me out. That F-bomb was dynamite.

Nate Falls Down Some Stairs

2007-12-15T02:58:00.000-08:00

I really don't have anything to say, really-- it's just me getting pushed down some stairs.

Thumbs up!

Free: a haiku

2007-11-30T12:28:00.000-08:00

~
bounding through rain, grass,
by gravestones, frowning black suits;
unburdened by pants
~

Less Vague Horoscopes for the week of 10/22/2007

2007-10-18T03:36:00.000-07:00

Aries (March 21-April 19):
You will find that your fishtank is in need of attention. I suggest taking a look at the pump first.

Taurus (April 20-May 20):
You will meet a mysterious stranger this week, and then he will steal your car at gunpoint. You might want to try a different route to work on Monday.

Gemini (May 21-June 21):
Your girlfriend is seeing someone behind your back. It's that guy with the mustache.
No, he's not really gay.
Yeah, I know, it's a really gay mustache, but that doesn't change the fact that he's definitely hitting that.

Cancer (June 22-July 22):

2% milk
cereal
onions
AA batteries
peanut butter (crunchy, we still have plenty of the creamy)
Astroglide
handcuffs
cottage cheese

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22):
Don't put that in your mouth. No, don't, I said.
You are so disgusting.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
That really is an impressive set of genitals you have there. Don't look now, there's nothing you need to worry about--I'm just saying. Doubly so if your name rhymes with "bnate" Go get 'em, tiger.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 23):
You will have a challenge to overcome at work this week-- step up and meet it head on. Tell that fatty Jenna that you'll slash her tires if she doesn't get her nose out of your business with Felipe-- She will discover a newfound respect for you, and maybe stop stealing all the orange M&M's out of that ugly-ass bowl on your desk. I certainly hope your kid made that in ceramics class, because it looks like you're trying to hide a pile of vomit by covering it with delicious candy.

Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21):
Snape kills Dumbledore.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Nedroid.com. You're welcome.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
I know the results don't come in until Tuesday, but I just wanted to let you know. I'm sorry, Bill, you're HIV positive. I'm going to also recommend going to Nedroid.com--it might not make the AIDS go away (or maybe it will, who knows), but you'll feel better anyway.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Your neighbor may come over to borrow something today. It's sugar, and you left it behind that gigantic sack of rice. By the way, when did you think you were ever going to eat that much rice without the help of an entire family of Asians?

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20):
It's always a good time to move forward. This is not figurative. The light has been green for 4 seconds already, and you're holding people up who are trying to get somewhere. Asshole.

Arctic Circle Jerks Part 4: Live Free or Die Jerks

2007-09-10T06:00:00.001-07:00

For anyone just tuning in:
Arctic Circle Jerks
Arctic Circle Jerks part 2: Circle Harder
Arctic Circle Jerks part 3: Jerks with a Vengeance

When we last left off, Chris's engine was having water trouble, and our heroes had devised a daring plan involving a plastic bottle and some zip-ties to keep the bike running.

Will it work?

Yep.

Will our heroes get eaten by bears?

Nope.

The fender extension worked just fine, and the engine fired right up on both cylinders after Chris put it all back together, and we took off again.

Sup, dog?

Chillin, yo.

Word. Keep on keepin' on.

Word. Let's roll, C.

And on we rolled.

How does engine type correlate with sexual preference?

Oh, well okay then.

And so we rode on. And then we had to stop again, because holy crap what is that?

Excuse the spots on my lens--it was raining at this point and there wasn't any way to keep it dry.

It was cold and rainy and all we wanted to do was finish getting to Prince George so we could put up camp and sleep, but this was the most incredible rainbow we'd ever seen; it was brilliant in a way the cameras just couldn't capture, like a multicolored laser shooting out of the ground, pointing at a magical pot of gay somewhere over the horizon.

But we managed to eventually shut our gaping mouths and fight on through the torrential rain that produced that rainbow, and a few hours later we had camp set up at Goji's place.

We woke up at Goji's, packed up our crap, talked to Goji about some magical Chinese herbal roofies or something that he wanted to share with us, and then took off.

At this point, I had realized that my chain and rear sprocket were both worn as damn--the sprocket teeth had been worn thin and sharp, and the chain was having to be tightened and lubed at almost every gas stop, it was stretching so quickly.

Nate's Ass: Status sexy.

And we met a man named BigHat McBallsChin.

No, I have no idea why they call him that.

I think this was the day when Chris's GPS actually fell off his bike while we were cruising--I guess Chris hadn't reapplied the zipties yet that day. We stopped and went back, and wouldn't you know it, the stupid thing was still working. So we strapped it back on and kept moving.

We switched bikes once between gas stops, just for some variety, and when we came to our next stop, it was like there had been an oil explosion somewhere around the aft and of Chris's bike's motor. There was oil on the shock, spring, swingarm, centerstand, rear header pipe, everywhere. Terrified, I went to the local auto parts place and got some thicker oil, oil stabilizer, and silicone for emergency leak patching. We spent a few hours trying to figure out what the F, and never could figure out where it was really coming from. So we topped her off and kept going and hoped this wasn't going to strand our asses up here to get assaulted by lonely, amorous moose.

Turns out after that first unexplained oil explosion, the oil loss slowed to barely a trickle, so we'd throw in a few drops at every gas stop, and it never gave us any more trouble. I think we ended up deciding it was the countershaft seal, but it never tried to recreate the Exxon Valdez incident again.

We made it to our friend Mike's place in Burnaby, BC, and I was jonesin' for some hot food, so Mike's slow-moving spaniel was starting to look tasty.

Then Mike distracted me with some real food, and managed to save his dog. Mostly. We cleaned ourselves up and took off for a night on the town in Vancouver.

Hey, a camera!

Old school! I wonder if anyone's done the Dalton Hwy on one of these.

Vancouver at night:

On the right is Mike, who kicks ass. To the left, not shown: a man urinating in public.

and here's our group, minus Chris the photographer.

Code names: The Revisionist, Mortal Wombat, Nathaniel T Kittenstomp III, and Man With Beard (Mike).

and if we were all in a band, this would be our album cover photo:

Nate: Easily Distracted.

Crotch: Present and accounted for.

Fill with care, indeed. Reminds me of how I feel about your mom, Chris.

Bridges: just another reason for Nate to make the Unnecessary Angry Face.

There's no way a caption could possibly improve this picture.

Jalapeño poppers, meet The Angry Face.

There was actually no reason to have an angry face. We had much Canadian beer, walked around town a lot, and ended up at some fancy restaurant, where we had poutine.

Poutine, for those who don't know, is a Canadian thing that's a huge bastard pile of fries, drenched in brown gravy, and topped with melty cheese curd. It's delicious, and probably took years off my life, and could only be improved with the addition of bacon. But we were in Canada, dammit, so to the hell with healthy eating!

I highly recommend it.

The next morning, Chris took off early and hauled ass, so he could meet some work friends in Oregon. I slept in and took my time, and found this, when I approached the border:

Miles of it.

It turns out that morning was the morning of the Glasgow/London airport bombings, so they turned the border dial down to Slow As Frozen Shit Running Uphill. It took me 5 hours to get across that thing, so in the meantime I turned off my bike and walked around distributing Coffee Crisp candy bars to my fellow motorists before they melted all over the insides of my saddlebags. One lady gave me some bottled water and an apple in exchange--God bless Canada. Everyone got out of their cars and hung out--it was like a cocktail party on a beautiful sunny day, except it took place in a gigantic traffic jam.

I eventually made it to the border, and the border crossing asshole confiscated my gigantic 1kg bag of dried pepperoni sticks, because I guess we're not okay with Canadian beef anymore. Screw that guy, twice. I called him unpublishable things under my breath, and then headed to Eugene, Oregon, to Susie's place, without incident.

Susie is for some reason deathly afraid of my camera, and is now a brunette:

Chris caught up with me there, and all three of us crashed together on the futon that night (in separate sleeping bags). Chris managed to get this shot of me before he left in the morning, so now I have proof that once I was in the same bed as a girl.

I stuck around that day, because Susie was having a potluck for other Couchsurfing members that night, and because I don't have a real person job that requires me to be available at any particular time, like Chris does.

I gave Susie a moto ride around town, picking up tiki torches and other things that I would not advise carrying on a bike, and then I helped her pound in a support for a fence, while she commented on my form:

Later, Steve arrived to surf Susie's couch that night, and also share in the potluck festivities There's him on the right:

As it turns out, Steve is my long-lost brother who lives in Chico, CA. He also has a cheap adventure bike (KLR650) held together mostly by bungees, and a traveling beard, and by a very strange coincidence, we have the same military-surplus rifle from Big 5 Sporting Goods, which I was thinking about bringing to fend off bears, and which he suggested I bring to fend off bears. We were finishing each other's sentences within 15 minutes of meeting. It was kind of strange.

The potluck went well. I set off some fireworks, and we all got good and drunk on Susie's mojitos, and everyone who attended thinks that Susie and Steve and I had a threesome later(we did not, in fact, at any time, have a threesome).

But I eventually managed to tear myself away from Susie and the charming town of Eugene, and headed off the next morning, equipped with the newest Feline Positioning System navigation technology.

That's cutting edge stuff, folks.

But after another uneventful day, a stop-off in San Fran at Ben's place that involved some incredibly gay karaoke and a piñata, and another day of cruising down the coast, I was home.

I don't think I've ever been so happy to see the Pacific Ocean:

When I pulled into the driveway, my bike was offially done running for a while:

The rear tire was down to damn near zero tread: toasted.

The chain was stretched way beyond the "replace now" point, to the "you should have replaced this a few thousand miles ago" point: toasted.

The rear sprocket wasn't just worn as hell, it only had half its teeth left; the rest had broken off between here and San Francisco: definitely toasted.

The sprockets and chain, I'd been tightening and lubing at every single gas stop since the Canadian border to keep them from falling apart. 200 miles farther and I wouldn't have made it.

So now the long, painful (for my ass) adventure is over, and I'm back home in Los Angeles. There are no insane black flies, or torrential downpours. I can have three meals a day, none of which have to be trail mix or beef jerky, and I have a choice of more than two shirts, and they're nearly all clean. Shoes and pants are purely optional, and I can drink things with ice in them, out of cups and not a Camelbak that makes everything taste like Wild Turkey 101. I get to sleep on a real bed, instead of next to Chris in a tiny 35-year-old backpacker tent that may or may not be leaking rain on my face.

But sometimes I wonder if that's what I really want.

For all its difficulties and discomforts, the road felt like home. Two wheels, the endless road, and a leaky blue tent were all I had, but they were all I needed. I always had a good night's sleep, no distractions, and the time and space to really think, and now I don't have those anymore. Left them out on the road, I suppose.

I just hope they're still waiting for me when I get back there.

Arctic Circle Jerks Part 3: Gravel, Burgers, and Engine Trouble in the Rain

2007-09-05T01:29:00.000-07:00

For those just joining us:
Arctic Circle Jerks: Part 1
Arctic Circle Jerks: Part 2: Graffiti, Firewater, and Gravel

So we woke up in Fairbanks and took our time with breakfast (peanut butter and Pop-Tarts, Breakfast of [Poor] Champions), because I'd allotted an entire day to get to the Circle, only 200 miles away.

While we were in fairbanks, some guy in a truck next to us at a light started revving his engine and looking over at us, like he wanted to race.

We let him race himself, since we were in the left hand turn lane. He wasted at least $20 in rubber and didn't really go anywhere. Between him and the Walgreens cashier with the serious fem-stache, this place is obviously filled with the best and brightest humanity has to offer.

Good times. A few trees and clouds later:

and we were at the beginning of the infamous Dalton Highway.

Chris, ready to tackle this thing on his streetbike. How he fits in regular sized pants, I'll never know:

Crotch is intact and operational. Let's do this.

This is the picture Wikipedia has for the Dalton: looks about right.

Here's some of the sort of road we spent most of the Dalton dealing with:

Nate is slightly dismayed by all this gravel, and doesn't know what the F.

All he knows is fuck gravel.

At this point, the infamous Alaska Black Flies had finally shown themselves. As soon as we stepped off our bikes and removed our helmets, we had about a second of peace, and then we were surrounded by a cloud of these tiny black assholes. Thousands of them, all trying to climb inside our noses and mouths and eyes, and the 98% DEET we had all over us barely slowed them down--these bastards eat DEET for breakfast. So we took off before we could be their lunch.

That's my excuse for having so few pictures of the Dalton. Every time we stopped, they attacked.

So after the first few miles of dirt road, we switched bikes so we could share the terrifying experience of riding it on the SV, just for giggles. It was quite a sight, me trying to ride a sportbike like it was a motocrosser--standing up, elbows out, sliding the rear all over the place. Except for the potholes, it was fun, in a demented, masochistic sort of way.

We stopped at the Yukon River crossing to fill up, since gas stations were about as rare as sanity up here. We loaded our Camelbaks up with ice and water, and tried to hit on the cashier girl.

How she resisted my grizzled charms, I'll never know:

Down the road, we pulled off to get some shots of Finger Mountain, and for me to exaggerate about the rocks we had to get through, and also the size of my johnson:

Thumbs up, Finger Mountain!

Crotch Status: Operational

Take that, Finger Mountain.

And here's finger mountain unmolested. Not really much of a mountain, truth be told.

...and back to the road.

There were a few construction portions where the road was covered in at least 6 inches of jagged, pool-ball-sized gravel. That was the worst-- neither bike's front wheel would stay put in that crap, and we were forced to follow a pilot truck that was going about 5 MPH, which did not help. These sections were the ones infamous for shredding tires and sending bikers back to Fairbanks on a tow truck, but somehow we escaped any such disasters.

Anyhoo, 17 miles past Finger Mountain there was this:

Awww yeah. That's the stuff.

We took some pictures with the sign to prove we were there:

...of course, one of our trusty bikes:

...and one of me jumping off a rock trying to look like I'm sitting on top of the world:

This is Lisa:

She works for UAF and was doing some kind of recreation study, giving questionnaires to travelers and whatnot, so we kept her company for a while.

We didn't add our mark to the back of the Arctic Circle sign, but we admired the handiwork of those who came before us.

And I read about some nature crap:

After dicking around for a few hours, we decided to start heading back so we could get a head start on some of the obscenely long days we had scheduled ahead of us, and maybe get some hot food for the night.

We stopped so we could take a closer look at this Alaska Pipeline:
Limited access, blah blah whatever.

I got your limited access right here, buddy.

You say pipeline, we say urinal.

Would these count as evidence of trespassing in court? Maybe we shouldn't be posting so many of them.

Seriously though, that's one big pipeline. GOD BLESS THE USA

"Why Chris, I do believe I have a gigantic pipeline emerging from the fly of my pantaloons!"
"You know, Nate, I have some recollection of a similar comment that your mother said last night regarding my own trousers."
"To that level of wit I truly have no answer. Touché, my friend."

Anyway, enough screwing around, back on the road.

And then it started raining, which was interesting.

And by "interesting", I mean "the only possible way to make the Dalton any more terrifying".

But we made it 60 miles anyway, and stopped at the Hot Spot "restaurant" for dinner, where I had the most obscenely large hamburger ever:

Seriously, it was ginormous. It extended an inch past the bun all the way around, and was a good 2cm thick at least--I'm guessing a pound of meat. This was a burger you could use to beat a man to death with, and then feed a family of four.

F you kitty, this is my big-ass burger!

We made camp right there by the Hot Spot, hoping that the smell of delicious burgers didn't attract any bears:

The ground was impenetrable, so we had to go find big rocks to replace our useless tent pegs.

Take THAT, tent!

obligatory "epic motorcycle picture with top-of-the-world sunset in the background:

Tomorrow: the Long Way Home.

We woke up the next morning, filthy and fly-bitten. Turns out 32 year old metal tent zippers start losing teeth when you pull them out of retirement for some roughin' it.

Our stuff was pretty dirty at this point, mostly just dried mud instead of the furry coat of dead bugs we had before. Here's my setup, complete with "WASH ME" and disgustingly dirty emergency spare helmet:

...and Chris's bike, which is normally quite a handsome machine:

Here's my emergency spare gas, a Powerade container.

The vast majority of plastic soda/water bottles are made of polyethylene, which is the same stuff my gas tank is made of, so it may not be DOT approved, but it's perfectly safe to use in a pinch, at least with a nice strong thick bottle like this one.

So we took off, back down the shitty gravelly Dalton, which, now that we had time for pictures, looked mostly like this:

Sometimes it would get a little shittier like this:

We'd show you the really big sharp stuff, but we were too scared to stop while we were actually going through it. So go ahead and pretend that I just posted pictures of us climbing mountains of jagged obsidian with our bikes strapped to our backs or something. It was approximately that manly, I assure you.

This was a pretty common sight for us, old guys on BMW GSs and slightly less old guys on KTMs. They thought Chris and I were fuckin' nuts for taking a streetbike up there. We told them our next project was doing the Dakar Rally on a Segway.

But eventually we reached proper tarmac, at the Elliot Highway.

Oh God yes, pavement.

I think I just peed myself a little.

Our trip off the paved roads had wreaked havoc with Chris's GPS cradle, and the power connection was only working intermittently, so Chris anchored that little shit down with a ziptie to make it work.

It continued to give us problems, though. Our solution? More zipties, of course.

2 Zip Ties: Serious Business.

We still had plenty of energy due to the head start we'd given ourselves the night before, so we went right through Fairbanks and kept going, until we stopped for dinner in Tok (pronounced "Toke"), Alaska.

A friend on an online forum suggested we try the pizza at Fast Eddy's, and since it was about the only restaurant in town, wasn't exactly a difficult choice:

Hot food! Yeehaw!

Pizza so good, you'll catch the Down's:

It's just...so beautiful.

They were all sold out, but this might be the greatest piece of Mountie-related art I've ever seen, and dammit, I want one.

We ended up going all the way to Alcan, just on the Alaska side of the border, and camping in the rain.

32-year-old backpacker tent: mostly waterproof. mostly.

I kid you not, we had to pay 12 dollars to camp in this muddy, sloped "campsite". Don't get me wrong, it was probably worth that just for the hot showers, but referring to this generator and tire graveyard as a "campsite" is a bit of a stretch.

As soon as the rain subsided enough the next morning, we packed up our crap...

...and booked it out of that place. Other than the hot Southern blonde working the front counter, there just wasn't any reason to stick around that hole any longer.

A bit down the road, our first mechanical issue of the trip struck, and we had to stop to take care of it.

It was the dreaded Wet Twin becomes Thumper Syndrome, where the front fender isn't long enough, and the front wheel throws water up into the engine and drowns the front spark plug, turning a 650cc Twin into a really shitty 325cc Single. It's pretty common on the SV, and a lot of people get fender extensions to prevent it.

"A lot of people", meaning "a lot of people who are not Chris".

So Chris cursed and started removing parts to get at the problem area while i provided encouragement and dicked around with his camera, which was much nicer than mine:

Chris managed to get most of the water out of there, clean the area up a bit, and displace the rest of the water with some WD40 (the WD stands for Water Displacement--go figure), and we carved up a bottle and ziptied it in place, for a homemade fender extension that I think Macgyver would be proud of:

Will it work?
Will our heroes get eaten by bears?
How does engine type correlate with sexual preference?

Tune in next time to find out!

Circle Jerks 4: Live Free or Die Jerks (the last part)

Arctic Circle Jerks Part 2: Graffiti, Firewater, and Gravel

2007-09-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

Arctic Circle Jerks: Part 1, for those just joining us.

So anyway, we looked around for something to siphon gas from or whatever, and then made elaborate plans to put all of Chris's gas in my tank so I could make it to a side road 30 miles up that led to a station 20 miles off the main road, and then bring back my full tank plus all 3 ItzaGasCans full so we could both make it to the next station down the road.

As it turns out, though, there was another open station not more than 5 miles down the road that wasn't on my map. This is because my map was a copy of the Milepost from 2003 (I am a genius), which was woefully out of date with regard to where fuel was.

So we filled up our tanks plus one of the emergency cans, just in case:

and Chris transformed into a ninja, with his new fleece cold weather gear and an official Harley-Davidson balaclava he picked up in Prince George. Note that the gas is $1.21 per litre:

We finally made it to Fort Nelson that night, where we had not managed to find a Couchsurfing host, so we put up our tent at a campsite at the edge of town, but not before visiting the local liquor store--it had been a really long and painful day and there's no way we were going to end it sober.

Have I mentioned my seat yet? The Suzuki DR650SE has the worst seat I've ever had the misfortune to do any distance on. To give you some context on this statement, I once did a round trip from LA to San Fran on this:

Yes, that seat is a license plate. The padded thing is a backrest. The bike's name was Gary. And that seat wasn't as bad as the godawful thing on the DR. I don't have a big ass by any reasonable ass measure, but the seat on the DR had at least an inch and a half of my ass hanging off each side of it, and was hard as a rock. So those first few days of the trip, I think I had some idea of what it feels like after some of the bad prison lovin'. Eventually I had the genius idea to turn that self-inflating sleeping pad into a ghetto air-filled seat cushion, which still wasn't all that great, but improved greatly on the alternative.

So I was still getting it prison style, but it was the lonely prison sex now instead of the angry prison sex, which is to say, with more lube and less punching. At this point I'd take what I could get.

Which brings us back to the need to drink. We picked up a bottle of Dr. McGillicuddy's Fireball Whisky and opened it up after we had settled in for the night.

Chris, Nate:

Meet Dr. McGillicuddy:

Truly, a pleasure to meet you.

and this is our tiny 32-year-old backpacker tent, set up there in Fort Nelson:

So the next morning, we had some trailmix, shared stories of hilarious sexual misadventures with each other's moms, and we were off, heading for Whitehorse:

We stopped at a small turnout to get some shots of the gorgeous scenery out here in the far outskirts of nowhere:

Hey, is that graffiti?

Nope, that's a shitload of graffiti!

"Dana Tubman smokes fatties with Brad"--kickass.

"Miller Mayes smells like [picture of poop] POOP"--I love the dedication to the message here, where they illustrated it, just in case you were not at all familiar with poop. Mad props, yo.

What can I say, I was inspired. So I whipped out a blue Sharpie and added my own, which I had spent the last 2 hours composing in my head:

There once was a native Alaskan,
Whose ass could be had for the askin'--
They say her caboose
Could handle a moose,
But had odors in dire need of maskin'.

I actually composed a second limerick as well, which was incredibly clever but so dirty it offended even me, so I'm not going to share that one. It really is that bad.

So we kept on, and passed Muncho Lake, which was gorgeous:

and then the famous Signpost Forest, in Watson Lake, BC, made from thousands of stolen roadsigns from all around the world, sort of like a frat house without any house or frat boys. Or beer, which I could have used at that point:

A while down the road, I had to pee. Bad. I kid you not, this was not a planned photo op--I stopped, whipped it out, and was peeing long enough for Chris to stop his bike, get off, see that I was pissing, start laughing that it was taking so long to finish, and THEN pull off his helmet and gloves, dig out his camera and take a picture, and then bust out laughing again because he seriously couldn't believe it. I must have been really using the Camelbak that day, because I am not exaggerating when I say that it took me a good 90 seconds at max flow rate to fully relieve myself:

I didn't even take the time to lose the helmet, that's how bad I had to go.

Man, that was awesome.

Anyhoo, we stopped in Whitehorse, Yukon that night and couchsurfed with a charming lady named Mel:

She let us cook bison burgers on her stove and use her internet and bring all our crap inside from the cold:

So I figured I'd repay her by letting Chris wash the dishes:

We crashed on her couches, and then woke up as cheery could be:

...and took off into the morning, heading for Fairbanks, Alaska.

I could probably just replace a lot of these pictures with the statement "and there was more nature stuff", but that just wouldn't properly communicate just how much fuckin' nature we passed. Anyone who likes space and trees should come up here, because this part of the world is big as damn.

Big as damn.

Here's Chris, showing the ideal position for super-long-distance riding on a sportbike. Laying on the tank, feet hooked over the passenger pegs. Works pretty well, although it looks strange.

Also, by this point Chris had gotten wise and gotten himself a Camelbak as well. I don't think either of us would attempt another serious road trip without one.

Speaking of big as damn:

I think that's Kluane Lake. It's pretty fuckin' large.

Gratuitous "parking in a no parking zone" shot:

Chris takes a squeegee to his bike:

I don't bother. We've been slaughtering bugs by the handful for the last 2 or 3 days, and we will continue to do so for a while, so I'll just let it be for now:

In retrospect, maybe I should have at least scraped off my headlight - there wasn't much light coming through the mass of dead bugs at that point.

The sky was angry that day, my friends, but I've never seen it more beautiful:

The roads had only started to get shitty the day before, on our way from Fort Nelson to Whitehorse. Discontinuous permafrost and frost heaving tear the shit out of the roads, so the Alaska Highway, which is what we were on for a huge portion of the trip, is always under construction. And by "under construction", I mean "covered in 2 inches of loose gravel for some fucking reason".

If you're in an RV or a truck, it's no big deal, even though the retarded RV drivers slow down to about 30 over the stuff anyway. On a dualsport bike with 80% street-oriented tires, it's pretty shitty. On a sportbike, it's terrifying, like skating on marbles. Not including the infamous Dalton Highway, we probably did at least 80 miles of shitty terrifying gravel construction roads, and we did not particularly enjoy them:

After enough of that shit, Chris was considering lighting himself on fire with his Bag O' Gas (which is what those cardboard gas cans become after some rain) as a rational alternative to more gravel riding:

As a bonus, the weather started getting exciting somewhere around Fort Nelson. It would be a gorgeous sunny day, birds singing and moose humping at the side of the road, and then the road would change direction all of a sudden and put you right under a gigantic pouring raincloud. 20 minutes later, you'd turn a corner, head down into a valley, and it would be that gorgeous day again. Through most of upper BC and the Yukon, this cycle ended up repeating sometimes 12 times a day.

On the upside, though, the periodic rain helped wash the layer of dead bugs off my faceshield. Hey, glass half full! (Full of bugs.)

Anyhoo, we made it to Fairbanks late that night, after 590 miles of gravel and rain. We stopped at a Fred Meyers to pick up some food and other supplies, and our lady cashier had a mustache. I guess that's just how they roll here in Alaska.

And then we ate here:

Northernmost Denny's in the world. And we ate there. Take that, Lewis and Clark.

Then we set up our crap in a campsite in town:

and passed the hell out.

Tune in next time for the last leg up to the Arctic Circle, and the start of the long stupid journey back home!

Arctic Circle Jerks 3: Jerks with a Vengeance

Arctic Circle Jerks:In Which Chris and Nate Get Drunk and Ride North, Part 1:L.A. to McLeod Lake, BC

2007-07-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

So I'm a motorcycle addict, and I've watched Long Way Round way too many times, so when the film industry went on hiatus this year I decided that I was going to do something retarded and epic on my motorbike. It was time to ride (Dun dun dun!) to the Arctic Circle.

My mom got wind of this, and convinced my best friend Chris to go with me. Had to twist his arm a bunch, I bet.

Because I'm a cheap bastard, I decided that for minimum expenditure and maximum manliness, there would be no hotels on this trip: either we would find someone to take us in for the night, or we would unpack our 32 year old backpacker tent and camp the hell out. Luckily, we discovered Couchsurfing.com, a worldwide community of people kind enough to let travelers crash on their couches for the night, and we started emailing potential hosts immediately.

Chris would be on his 1st gen SV650, an ex-trackbike, with its stiff track suspension and low clipons. He managed to convert it back to the stock tubular bar, and got some saddlebags, a Tom Tom GPS, a "waterproof" duffel bag, and a cheap bar-mount Spitfire windscreen, and ended up getting it to look like this:

I was thinking about also taking my SV, a 2nd gen 650S, but I knew the roads would get nasty up north and I wanted something with a little more fuel, so I went with my DR650SE. For the trip, I went with the same cheap-ass windscreen that Chris got, and found a guy in Orange who used my bike to make a prototype luggage rack and then gave me the first production model, which worked perfectly with my trunk and expandable side bags. I already had an oversized desert tank and some brand new Pirelli Scorpion A/T tires, so I was pretty much good to go:

Seriously, that rack is amazing. It's solid as hell, and symmetrical, which means there's some space under the rack on the left where my tent could sit directly opposite my exhaust. The Sequoia Rack - they've got versions that fit all of the major Japanese dualsports and some KTMs too. Highly recommended.

We decided to leave nothing to chance so we had loads of emergency stuff. First-aid kit, a tire plug kit for Chris, spare tubes front and rear for me with a patch kit just in case, 3 tire irons, and a small Campbell-Hausfield tire compressor with the plastic enclosure removed for compactness and the cig lighter plug converted to an SAE connector, which Chris and I both had attachments for, both directly to the battery and through a switched circuit. Plus, 3 ItzaGasCan 1-gallon collapsible fuel containers, which would supplement the SV's range up in the sticks where fuel stations are far apart.

For emergency food, I had several pounds of custom-mixed trail mix, some bottles of water, and a 70oz Camelbak that would turn out to be an absolute godsend on the road.

We had to get new riding gear for this, as we knew there would be some weather that leather just couldn't deal with. I went with a Fieldsheer Highland II suit, the poor man's Aerostich, at $260. One piece, covered in pockets, waterproof as they come, and makes me look like a fat fighter pilot.

Chris went with the separate textile jacket/pants, also from Fieldsheer, or maybe Firstgear.

Anyhoo, it turns out that Chris could only get 2 weeks off work, so our schedule got tightened up to 16 days - 2 5 day workweeks, and 3 full weekends, to go 7600 miles, more or less. We were going to be hauling ass, at 400-600 miles every day, with a few 600 mile days in a row. On my SV, I once did a trip to Illinois and back and averaged 600-700 miles a day, but the DR's a much slower sort of beast, so we were looking at some pretty frickin' long days. But that's how it goes when you have a real job that requires you to show up regularly, so that's what we would do.

So we left our apartments in LA and met at a gas station in Sylmar to exchange sexual innuendo about each other's moms and make sure we didn't forget anything vital before officially taking off for San Francisco.

This was me and Pam, and Chris with his Suzi, in Sylmar next to a Denny's. I was clean-shaven and Chris had his cleanly trimmed goatee:

First thing forgotten: Chris left his mp3 player at home, so he'd be rollin' with earplugs for the rest of the trip. Bummer, man.

But no time to go back to get it: we were off for San Fran, and this was the route:

Google Maps route, with all our stops

That first day, we spent a lot of time getting stuff set up just right--adjusting our windshields, readjusting out windshields, trying different riding positions, figuring out how to communicate with hand signals:

and refining our techniques for taking pictures of scenery while riding:

Also, my bike hit 20k miles, so we pulled over to celebrate:

and take pictures of my riding gear.
Major crotch reporting for duty!:

So we made it to SF without any issues, and made our way to our old college buddy Ben's place, which has moto parking right across the street. That's Ben's KLR650 on the left:

Here's me next to our parked bikes, looking like I don't know what the F:

Ben led us on our bikes all around the city to show us how much fun a place like SF is for a guy on a bike. For some reason I ended up wearing no gear except my novelty beanie helmet that I brought for emergency passenger purposes, so I looked like a complete douche and was constantly getting crap in my eyes. Never again. Here's a shot of us looking down on the city:

and a better picture of me looking like some kind of tard, with Ben and Chris:

I'm an excellent driver!

Then we went to a super-funky local bar and had beer in weird-shaped bottles, and then I passed out on Ben's futon:

So we hauled ass out of San Fran the next morning, with Ben, who led us over the Golden Gate and then left us and handed navigation over to Chris's GPS.

And then we passed this boat, and there was much rejoicing:

It was hot as a bastard, so we figured we'd have our first real rest stop, and I parked Pam on the grass, proper dualsport style:

and Chris had some Nutri-Grain bars, or at least lots of chunks of nutri-grain bars:

As it turns out, soft cereal bars don't hold up well to being packed tightly in saddlebags and vibrated to death. Also, the reason why people use M&M's in trail mix is because the hard candy shell keeps them from melting all over the damn place at the first sign of a California afternoon. Note to self.

That extra bulge on my bike is a sleeping bag. Ben hooked us up with 2 kickass 20 degree mummy bags and one of those Thermarest self-inflating sleeping pads, for camping. Most importantly though, that sleeping bag made a sweet lower backrest, and sometimes, when I was really bored, a seat:

So we took off, and conversed for a bit:

We actually did spent quite a lot of time on the road flipping each other the bird and expressing through interpretive dance what we were doing with each other's moms last night, and then clarifying the sordid details verbally when we de-helmeted for gas stops. It's just how we communicate.

There was some more camera experiments, including some face shots in which you can see quite a lot through the faceshield reflections:

and eventually we managed to get some shots of actual scenery. This is not Mount Shasta, but I'm going to pretend that it is, because somehow I managed to not get any actual pictures of Mount Shasta.

Anyhoo, we were excited--we finally crossed our first state border into Oregon, and were going to have our first Couchsurfing experience of the trip. Maybe we'd have a good night's sleep, maybe we'd get axe murdered. Who knows?

So we rolled into Susie's place in Eugene, Oregon late at night after having spent a lot of time dicking around at gas stops. We came bearing gifts of (not expensive) wine, and Susie greeted us with a smile when we rolled in:

Susie Ninjapants does roller derby, and is an adorable, charming girl, and that is a terrible picture of her.

So Susie was chilling on her back porch couch, with Maren, a homeless circus performer who was also crashing her couch that night, and had been there for at least a week or two. This is her:

So we all squeezed onto the couch and shared wine and Thai peanuts into the wee hours of the morning. This is me. I'm drunk, and I don't know what the F:

Then we spent most of the morning doing exactly the same thing, minus the long-gone wine:

Then Chris gave the girls a ride, if you know what I mean:

I mean on his bike, perv.

Not pictured: Me, jealous:

So we set off for our next stop, Vancouver:

Somewhere in Washington, it started getting cold, so we had to stop and suit up for cold weather riding for the first time, which for me involved taking off my entire suit and attaching the liner, which is an entire other quilted suit that velcroes inside the other one, and is warm as damn. Also, a neck warmer. So now I'm a really fat fighter pilot:

And the sun started going down, so we stopped and took some pictures, just because:

This sign that we passed before crossing the border should have read: ATTENTION: FILL UP ON BEER AND GAS NOW BECAUSE THE CANADIANS WILL RAPE YOUR WALLET FOR THEM BOTH:

Note on Oregon: full-serve gas is how that state rolls. I had to practically kick the attendant in the nuts because he didn't want to let me fill up my own bike. Dude. No. I let him operate the credit card machine, and that's it.

So we crossed the border without issue and made it to a friend's place in Burnaby, BC, a suburb of Vancouver, by late evening. We were so tired, we practically walked in the door and passed out, so neither Chris nor I have any pictures of that stop. It's okay though, we stayed with them on our way south too, so it all works out.

First thing the next morning, we went straight to the local Canadian Superstore to buy more clothes. Turns out Chris's gear was woefully inadequate for even a cold Vancouver summer night, so he got a fleece pullover to go under his other stuff, while I sat outside and took pictures of our illegally parked bikes.

"No stopping any time"? Oh, no worries--that's just Canadian for "Motorcycle Parking".

And so we set off. There were mountains:

"Hey Chris! Look! Nature stuff!" "Shut up Nate."

There were heroic poses:

and tomfoolery:

But we finally made it to Goji's place, where we were to couchsurf that night.

Well, sort of.

You see, Goji doesn't actually have a couch. He lives in this other chick's backyard, in a tent. He's a nudist hippie vegan raw-foodist pedal cabbie, who also paints faces and is heavy into laughter yoga.

So here's where we stayed for the night. In our backpacker tent, pitched next to Goji's tent. I didn't notice this before, but there's Goji himself on the porch steps. Luckily it was too cold for him to practicing his nudism properly, so he just wore his Jedi robes or whatever:

So we took off the next morning for Fort Nelson, BC. Also known as the middle of frickin' nowhere. We were definitely in the sticks now, and gas stations were far apart and expensive as F.

So we were around McLeod Lake when we realized that we'd missed the last gas station and were about to run out, or at least Chris was. So we were super relieved to find this station, which wasn't on my map:

Thank God, gas!

Oh wait, cash only? That might be a prob--

oh, F word.

OH NO, WILL OUR HEROES FIND GAS, OR WILL THEY BE EATEN BY CARIBOU AND BEAVERS?

FIND OUT WHEN NATE GETS HIS SHIT TOGETHER AND POSTS AGAIN!

Arctic Circle Jerks part 2: Circle Harder

Ghost Rider: Wait, What the Crap Was That?A review, and public service announcement

2007-03-03T05:48:00.000-08:00

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I was watching a Nick Cage Movie, not trying to test my mental pain tolerance. Seriously, I want to cry. I will never get those 2 hours of my life back. I feel cheated out of time that would have otherwise been wasted anyway.

First of all, this movie was loaded chock full of stuff that I like. I like motorcycles. I like comic book/superhero movies as a general rule, especially the ones starring heroes that are a little bit bad. I like motorcycles. I like fire. I like motorcycles. Sometimes I like Nicholas Cage. I like Eva Mendes.

Oh yeah, Eva Mendes. Good times.

...

Anyway, Ghost Rider. I just don't know what to say. Somehow they took all that rad stuff and put it together into something terrible that I would like to light on fire and then pee on, but not until it's good and burned up, because otherwise it would just be a little bit charred and peed on, whereas my goal would be total eradication by fire. Plus, pee.

The whole time, I was hoping that all this badness was leading up to some sudden climax of awesomeness that would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but no, it ended up just a collection of nonsense plot points in between some nonsense fight scenes and a bunch of shit on fire.

I know I should be giving concrete examples instead of just saying it's bad in a lot of different ways, so I will, because I can imagine my English teacher telling me to, not that I paid a lot of attention to anything in that class except her hilarious British accent.

When our hero Johnny Blaze: Stunt Motorcyclist first turns into the Ghost Rider, he tears ass through town as a flaming skeleton on a flaming motorcycle, going so fast that everything near his path is lit on fire, thrown into the air, melted, or exploded by the shock wave. Then he kills a mugger, which is not at all relevant to my point. The next morning, the cops arrive to find a trail of destruction that could only be laid by a very angry atomic fire tornado earthquake. At the sight of this level of catastrophic wreckage, any normal human would be immediately rending their clothing and wondering where they might locate some sackcloth, ashes, and maybe some virgins to appease what is obviously a very very angry God, or possibly Chuck Norris. Instead, the investigating officer's response seems to be Huh. Looks like the town was laid to waste by some sort of unspeakably violent supernatural power...Hey look, a license plate. I bet it was that guy who jumps motorcycles over stuff! Whew, that was a tough one! So, apple fritter or bear claw?

And it actually gets stupider from that point on, I kid you not. The specifics would make you annoyed, and probably a little bit stupider.

But it's all worth it in the end if I manage to prevent you from letting this movie kick your brain right in the balls. That's my public service to the world, and you're welcome. All I ask is that you use your turn signals once in a while, jackass. Is that too much to ask? Is it?

Gender Studies and Poop Math: Together at Last

2007-01-25T20:52:00.000-08:00

It amazes me how some people really manage to get their panties in a bunch over silly things sometimes, like whether or not guys leave the seat up after peeing.

I've heard ladies put forth the argument that if they come into the bathroom and a man has left the seat up, the lady might end up accidentally sitting in cold water if she didn't check to see where the seat was, but I have little sympathy for people who don't pay attention to what they're doing. I have also heard it said that, since men sit down to poop and women always sit down, the seat spends most of its time down, and so men should always leave it down. It's a better argument, but I still find it rather simplistic, and lacking in numbers. I think it's time to put this thing to rest, once and for all, through the power of mathematics:

Let's assume for the sake of this argument that when we're going to the head, 75% of the time we're peeing and 25% of the time we're pooping, as that seems to be about my usual ratio and it makes the math relatively easy.

That means the girlies are sitting 100% of the time, and the guys are sitting 25% of the time and standing 75% of the time. Which is to say, the seat needs to be up 75/200ths=3/8ths of the time, or ~38% of the time, assuming that women and men are roughly equal in their usage of the john.

Now, if everyone just leaves the seat the way it is when they're done:

The ladies will have to move the seat 3 out of 8 times, as they need it down 100% of the time and 3/8ths of this toilet's uses will have left it up. Out of 32 bathroom trips, she will have to touch the toilet seat 12 times.

The men, if looking to drop the kids off at the pool (1/4 of the time), will similarly have a 3 in 8 chance of having to put the seat down. If they're tinkling (3/4ths if the time), however, they will have a 5/8ths chance of having to lift the seat. In the end that works out to 3/32 + 15/32 = 18/32. That has men having to touch the seat 50% more often than women, 18 times for every 32 expeditions to the loo. So we're already doing the lion's share of 2nd-hand ass-touching here. Of all the seat-manipulating happening, men are doing 60%.

If men were responsible for lowering the seat when they're done:

The ladies would never, ever have to touch the seat, because the seat is set exactly the way they like it. 0 seat touches per 32 bathroom trips.

The men, on the other hand, when they pee (3/4ths of the time), will have to to lift the seat, and then PUT IT BACK DOWN. That means for every 32 bathroom breaks, the man will have to touch that thing 24 whopping times. The men now are doing 100% of the crapper-touching.

Now tell me what you think sounds like a more reasonable plan:

-men having to do 60% of the work of touching the seat, and women having to take a brief glance at where they are putting their bare asses,
or,
-men doing 100% of the seat-manipulating, just so women can walk into the bathroom in the dark, ass-first, without taking the quarter second's worth of effort to visually verify the seat position.

And this isn't even taking into account the fact that if there are any germs on this seat, 4/5th of them are from female asses, so you should be grateful that we're already doing the germ-touching 60% of the time, even though they're mostly your germs. But we're happy to touch those germs that are 80% yours, 60% of the time, with zero complaining, because we're cool like that, and (presumably) because we love you.

Now go make us a sandwich, darlin.

An Analysis of Astrological Lover Profiles or, Danger: Do Not Have Sex with Any of These People

2007-01-21T23:32:00.000-08:00

I came across this list of Zodiac lovers' profiles on a website that I will not refer to by name, but I will say that it occasionally makes me despair for the future of humanity and it rhymes with thighspace. It claims to be from a book written 35 years ago by an astrologist predictionist who had the foresight to threaten me with bad luck if I fail to repost it, so here it is, followed by my thorough scientific analysis:

.:VIRGO:. The Virgin
Dominant in relationships. Sexy. someone loves them right now. Freak in bed. Always wants the last word. Caring. Smart. Intellectual. Attractive. Loud. Loyal. Easy to talk to. Hard to forget Love at first sight. Everything you ever wanted. Easy to please. The one and only. Ultimate sexiness. 7 years of abd luck if you do not repost.

.:SCORPIO:. The sex addict
Can be mean. EXTREMELY sexy. Intelligent. Energetic. Predict future. Most erotic. (Freak in bed.) (GREAT kisser.) Always get what they want. Sexy. Attractive. Easy going. Loves being in long relationships. Talkative. The sexiest ever....Romantic. Caring. 4 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:LIBRA:. The liar
Very pretty. Very romantic. Nice to everyone They meet. Their Love is one of a kind. Silly, fun and sweet. Have own unique sexiness. Most caring person you will ever meet! Amazing n Bed..!!! Did I say Amazing n Bed? not the kind of person you wanna #### with... u might end up crying... the most irresistible. 9 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:ARIES:. The Lover
Outgoing. Lovable. Spontanious. Not one to #### with. Erotic. Funny. Take you on trips to the moon in bed. Excellent kisser EXTREMELY sexy. Loves being in long relationships.=) Addictive. Loud. best in bed. 16 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:AQUARIUS:. Does it in the water
Trustworthy. Sexy. Great kisser. One of a kind. Loves being in long-term relationships. Extremely energetic. Unpredictable. Will exceed your expectations. Not a Fighter, But will Knock your lights out. Amazing in bed, THE BEST LOVERS BETTER THAN EVERYONE! 2 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:GEMINI:. Does Twosomes
Nice. Love is one of a kind. Great listeners Very Good in bed. Lover not a fighter, but will still knock you the #### out. Trustworthy. Always happy. Loud. Talkative. Outgoing VERY FORGIVING. Loves to make out. Has a beautiful smile. Generous. Strong. ULTRA SEXY. THE MOST IRRESISTABLE. 9 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:LEO:. The Lion in bed
Great talker. Sexy and passionate. Laid back. Knows how to have fun. Is really good at. Great kisser. Unpredictable. Outgoing. Down to earth. Addictive. Attractive. Loud. Loves being in long relationships. Talkative. Not one to mess with. Rare to find. Good when found. 7 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:CANCER:. The Cutie
MOST AMAZING KISSER. Very high ### appeal. Great in bed!!! Love is one of a kind. Very romantic. Most caring person you will ever meet! Entirely creative. Extremely random and proud of it. Freak in bed. Spontaneous. Great tellin stories. Not a Fighter, But will Knock your lights out if it comes down to it. Someone you should hold on to. 12 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:PISCES:. The Piece of ass
Caring and kind. Smart. Center of attention. Too Sexy, DAMN IT. Very high ### appeal. Has the last word. The best to find, hardest to keep. Fun to be around. Freak in the sheets. Extremely weird but in a good way. Super good in bed. Good Sense of Humor!!! Thoughtful. A partner for life. Always gets what he or she wants. Loves to joke. Very popular. Silly, fun and sweet. 5 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:CAPRICORN The passionate Lover
Love to bust. Nice. Sassy. Intelligent. Sexy. Predict future. Irrestible, awesome kisser. Loves being in long relationships. Great talker. Always gets what he or she wants. BY FAR the BEST in BED. Very sexy. Coolest. Loves to own Gemini's in sports.
Extremely fun. Loves to joke. Loves to be your first. So you'll never forget. Smart. 24 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:TAURUS The Tramp
Aggressive. Freak in bed. Rare to find! Loves being in long relationships Likes to give a good fight for what they want. Extremely outgoing. Sexy as ........ Loves to help people in times of need. Outstanding kisser. Very funny. Awesome personality. Stubborn. Sexual as ......... Most caring person you will ever meet! One of a kind. Not one to #### with. Are the most sexiest people on earth! 15 years of bad luck if you do not repost.

.:SAGITTARIUS:. The Sexy one
Spontaneous. Horny. Freak in Bed. High appeal. Rare to find. Great when found. Loves being in long relationships. The one. So much love to give. Not one to mess with. 4 years of bad luck if you do not repost

First, according to this, 5 out of the 12 signs are "freaks in bed", which according to the Wikipedia, means they have either unusual personalities, or entertaining physical deformities. Good times, either way.

All Leos are described as "a lion in bed", which I can only assume means they weigh 300-500 lbs, operate in packs, and sometimes eat people. Watch out, ladies.

Capricorns and Aquariuses both separately rank as "the best in bed, better than all the others". Apparently astrologers aren't 100% acquainted with the definition of "best", and I'll leave it at that.

Aries lovers will "take you to the moon", which means that they've been studying their copies of Sexing for Dummies, or that they have NASA elaborately fake their orgasms to intimidate the Russians.

Libras in the sack are "amazing", and Cancers are "great". Geminis somehow only managed a score of "very good". Sucks to be those guys, I guess, since everyone else gets to be a freakish spacefaring sexual Tyrannosaurus.

So, good night and happy humping, people.

Except Geminis, apparently. Have fun being unexceptional.

Pictures of Fake Nazis

2007-01-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

No, I don't normally hang out in a nazi SS uniform, but that's life in the film industry.

Fake nazis

All About Attention Deficit...wait, what?

2006-11-29T00:18:00.000-08:00

Q: How many kids with A.D.D does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Hey, wanna go ride bikes?

I wasn't any kind of serious case, but I was diagnosed with the ol' ADD when I was a wee bastard, brainwave charts and everything. Now that I'm an adult (I guess), it's not really detrimental, but its effects are occasionally hilarious.

When I got up this morning, I had intended to finish watching Disc 2 of House, M.D. Season 2, so I could take it back to Blockbuster and get something else (Disc 3, probably-- I love that show like Charlie Sheen loves transvestite hookers). I jumped down from bed and headed for the living room, making it about a foot before I got distracted by my computer and decided to check my email.

So I proceeded with that, and about halfway through, remembered that last night's episode of Heroes (which I thought maybe I was going to appear in) was now online, so I watched that.

Having done that, I continued my marathon 15-foot trek to the living room, and passed a small mirror, which revealed that I probably needed a shower, possibly a haircut, and definitely a better place to put that mirror so it wasn't distracting me all the fucking time.

So it was definitely shower time. I dropped my pants, pulled a towel off its wall hook, and then saw my rent invoice tacked to my cork board, and resolved to pay it right then, so I wouldn't forget.

I actually managed that entire task all in one run--made it all the way to the dining room table and dropped off the check, where I noticed the vacuum cleaner, which must have previously been in someone else's room because I hadn't seen it in weeks, which meant my room was due for a good vacuuming.

Back to my room I went, with Señor Dirt Diablo, and gave the floor a go for about 20 seconds before I figured out that my loud little cylindrical Satan was pretty much just pushing crap around without picking any up. Made a mental note to stop buying cleaning appliances named after the Lord of Darkness, and got out the tools for some minor surgery. As it happens, it was a massive ball of crap stopping up the bastard, which I managed to break up and push out with the aid of a rifle bayonet and a great deal of creative profanity.

Reassembled, the satanic suck-machine was much more cooperative, and I got about half my floor done until I ran into my old Mosin 91/30, from which the bayonet had come. Its position in my room was totally non-conducive to my vacuuming process, and generally annoyed me for no well-defined reason, so a new home had to be found, right then.

I wandered about the room looking for an appropriate perch for a 4-foot bolt-action piece of dirty Commie history, and once again got distracted by my computer.

So here I am, sitting at my computer posting to my blog, with a huge Russian battle rifle across my lap and no pants on. If you've ever wondered what A.D.D is like, this is it, right here.

So how about that bike ride?

Pictures of Nate Jumping Off Things-- Episode 2: Mammoth Mountain

2006-07-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

Man, there sure is a lot of crap to jump off of in the mountains. These were taken this week, during a family reunion of sorts in Mammoth Lakes, California.

Many thanks to Eric Barone and his Digital Rebel, from which came most of the good pictures this time, and as usual, you may click for the much larger uncropped versions.

Note the snowballs already airborne and heading for me:

...and impact!

Leave comments if you want to make any specific requests regarding things that I might jump off of, or if you just want to call me a dork.

Pictures of Nate Jumping Off Things-- Episode 1: The Porch

2006-07-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that I like to jump off things.

This should not be surprising to anyone who knows me well, or has worked with me in stunts, or has ever been around me while there are nearby objects that can reasonably be jumped off of. I don't believe I've ever gone down an entire set of stairs without jumping over the last 4 or 5 of them, unless I was sliding down the railing (which, now that I think about it, might explain why my jeans wear out so quickly in the ass regions).

Anyway, I set up my camera and spend about a half hour capturing shots of me in midair jumping off the porch, and made a horrifying discovery: For some reason, I make some of the most profoundly retarded facial expressions when I'm in midair. I have yet to successfully capture an aerial shot of me without my free-fall-induced Down's Syndrome.

And since I lack some basic sense of dignity, I'm going to show you exactly what I mean, and you can click the images for larger, clearer evidence that I still ride the short bus wherever I go.

The first shot was badly timed, capturing me only about a foot off the porch:

...but what I lack in altitude, I make up for in stupid faces:

I like pie!

Take that, gravity!

Flared nostrils create lift, apparently.

...although if my face is any indication, I may have just soiled myself.

Number three, a little higher up and from the side:

and the close-up:

I'm an excellent driver.

And finally the inexplicable but awesome shot that makes me wonder what other weird positions I'm making in midflight:

It's like a really short episode of Life Goes On:

My mom sews name tags into my underwear.

Thanks, and stay tuned for other sure favorites, like Pictures of Nate Eating Crayons, and Pictures of Nate Falling Out of Bed.

Review: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

2006-06-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I just got back from seeing 3 Fast 3 Furious 3 Tokyo 3 Drift, and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't suck nearly at all.

I remember reading through the daily scripts when I was on set, thinking that some of the dialogue was just awful, the same caliber as most of Anakin Skywalker's lines in Star Wars Ep. 2 and 3, and I guess the editors agreed with me because they cut out most of the really awkward bits, including the big kiss at the end where, for complicated reasons, they had to use a photo double in Lucas Black's place. In the end, it still wasn't Shakespeare - hell, it wasn't Joss Whedon, but for a big dumb fast action movie about a nonsense racing style that actually gets you to the finish line slower than just driving normally, it worked well enough, and didn't cause me too much emotional or intestinal distress.

A few criticisms:

The cellphone camera POV shots. Lame. What is this, a Verizon commercial?
The credits went by way too quickly, and kept spinning around, so I was able to neither confirm nor deny that my name was listed under "Stunt Players".
All the mid-race rapid cutting back and forth from Racer 1's face, Racer 2's face, and Racers 1 and 2's hands, wheels, etc. etc.. At moments, it made it hard to figure out exactly what the hell was going on. But maybe that's just me getting slow in my old age, and in a few months I'll be sitting on a porch swing with a shotgun across my lap yelling at passing kids to get off the damn lawn.

I liked it, though. Hell, I saw it get filmed, so it's not like I didn't know how the races were going to end, and some of the racing bits still had me on the edge of my seat, heart rate up, arthritis givin' me both barrels.

I give it seven out of ten Steve McQueens. I thought it may have been better than the first Furious movie, and was definitely better than the facepunchingly bad 2 Fast 2 Furious. By my usual rating system, I'd rate it 6 dollars, $6.50 if you can find a showing that's not filled with the loud teenage spiky-headed douchebags that seem to always love movies like this.

*SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH*
Also, that bit at the end with Vin Diesel? I had no idea that was going to happen, after being on set with first unit every single day they filmed in this country. Surprised the crap out of me, or maybe that's just me losing bowel control after all these years.
*END SPOILERS*

More random stuff to watch for:

Near the beginning, right after Lucas gets off the plane, he's going up a long escalator. A few people back behind him, you can see a couple of airline pilots. One of them is Justin Lin, the director. If I recall correctly, the other one is Clayton Townsend, the executive producer.
During the training montage at the docks, one of those old fisherman guys is Keiichi Tsuchiya, the real-life "Drift King". If you're not into the drifting scene, you don't know who he is. Don't worry about it, neither do I, but I guess he's kind of a big deal for the drifting crowd.
After the movie, drive carefully back home. I guarantee the cops will be around the corner salivating at the thought of ticketing all the aforementioned spikey-headed douchebags who will be driving like complete asshats as soon as they get back in their cars. Not having rear-drive or any actual ability to drift will not stop them from trying to drift, trust me on this.

Non-Drunken Inexplicable Story Involving My Pants

2006-05-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

You know those stories about the strangeness that sometimes happens after a long night of excessive drinking, where you wake up in strange places missing articles of clothing? I just sort of had one of those.

Except in reverse.

It was a long and sober night. At about 11 pm, Ben and I were on a mission to find a particular Woody Allen movie and it just wasn't happening. We had to avoid the most local Blockbuster because they seem to have gotten it in their silly bastard heads that I owe them money. Fortunately, there was another one not too far off, that according to Blockbuster's website was open until midnight. Unfortunately, Blockbuster's website is a filthy lying whore, and that store had been closed since 10, and was also inside a laundromat for some reason.

But forget all that, because it's not important.

Except the bit where Blockbuster is a filthy whore. I can't stress that enough.

What's important is my pants. You see, after Ben and I failed in our mission and took the consolation prize of watching the movie Waiting while eating apple turnovers and deli sandwches from Ralph's (which was open - are you listening, Blockbuster? You can make money by selling things to people if you're open), Ben went home and I went to sleep, after carefully removing my pants, as it was a rather warm night.

When I awoke at a perfectly ordinary hour of the morning, I stood and stretched, and all seemed to be well with the world, at first. Birds were chirping, passing motorists shouted friendly obscenities at each other, and the smell of stale beer floated in through my not-quite-closed bedroom door.

But something was deeply and terribly wrong, and I could feel it, once my senses awoke from their slumber. As I slowly looked down, I prepared myself for the worst, but nothing could prepare me for what I beheld.

My pants were back on.

A rational man might simply go on with his day, assuming that he had woken up during the night and, finding it too cold for his tastes, reclothed himself. I, however, taking pride in having never been merely rational, find it much more likely that there was an intruder last night who, upon entering my room and seeing my pantsless form, felt immediately and profoundly inadequate and left in great despair, after replacing my pants in some bizarre act of tribute to the equipment I have been blessed with, taking care to lock the door behind him.

Or it was the Reverse Pants Fairy, who left the quarter I found under my pillow.

But, which one was it?, you ask. This is important.

The world may never know, my friend. The world may never know.

In Which Nate Applies for a Reality TV Show

2006-05-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, a friend told me about a new reality show involving a sort of long-distance scavenger hunt; sort of an Amazing Race kind of thing, only with motorcyclists.

The show's grand prize was to be a "highly customized Harley-Davidson", which was a bummer, but I could always sell it and buy 5 or 6 other bikes that I'd actually ride. And they were looking for applicants.

I filled out their online application, answering most of the questions with the repeated assertion that I was really Batman, and then I promptly forgot about it until they called me a couple of days later and told me they were interested, and would I please make a video introducing me and send it in?

So I called around and gathered Gavin, the man with the camera and a hell of an editor, and Jason, the tall drink of water who you'll see in the video, a bastard with a talent for writing scripts, and we made this:

Also, I apologize.

Early Mourning

2006-04-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

...by the Abominable Showmen: