I've been listening to a lot of The Troggs lately

Let's get real drunk and ride our bikes

I want more nights like this in my life.

I'm wondering what this penguin is thinking about here. He must be so confused. It looks like he just broke through the 4th wall and is looking in on what he thought was his real life. Stop me if this doesn't make any sense, but I just get the feeling that this penguin never wants to go back in that tank ever again.

Bunker from another time and another place

My dad just sent me this picture of the school he went to in Yemen. I guess for a little while it was used as a station for the military. In the 1950s and 1960s, much of Yemen was still under British Colonial rule so there was a lot of friction between the Arabs and the Brits so it wouldn't have been uncommon for schools and other public buildings to be taken over temporarily by the military. These men don't really seem to be planning a strategic offensive against the Limeys though, instead it seems that their primary objective is to chill.

I've been rather silent lately

I feel like all of my internets are falling victim to a slow, painful, and stagnant kind of death. Aside from Twitter that is. I can twitter-twat all day. I can say twitter-twat all day. My latest obsession in life and on the twitter has been something I've been calling #yourdailycuteness. Basically, I just go on there everyday and post some type of super cute picture or video. Usually pictures because I can't watch videos at work. Here are some examples from the past two weeks:

The Buzzcocks

You said I could run away too.

Just placed my order for this guy.
It's a 12x24, 5 color (I can see, maybe, two of those colors) screen print done by Daniel Danger. I saw this guy posted at OMG Posters! the other day and just had to have it. So I hurried and ordered it through MondoTees, which turns out to have been a mistake since, even though they sold out rather quickly, Daniel will now be offering them up at his site. The one's he'll have will be signed and numbered. He's also gonna have a blue variant. So...ummm, boohair? Yes, boohair indeed.



Also, I've finally started the process of screen capping this movie, so be on the lookout for those, probably this week.

Wilco Posters

Here are some concert posters I bought at the Wilco shows I went to recently.


Fox Theater in Pomona, 6.20.2009

Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, 6.23.2009

Things that I've been called other than my name

Over the years I've had a lot of people not really understand my name. This usually only happens when people encounter my name for the first time. Whether they hear me or someone else say it, or if they see it written down. I always, without fail find these moments hilarious. I think you all know about my favorite time this happened ("Two Hands, huh?"), but here are some more classic "Zuhair" eff-ups.

There was my the history professor at UCR, Elizabeth Vanderven, who for two whole quarters called me Zaire (Zah-year), like you know? The country in Africa (now called the somewhat less catchy Democratic Republic of Congo). I probably could have corrected her, but dang dude, she was cute and I figured that I'd let her call me whatever she wanted.

The ethnic studies professor, Ralph Crowder, who simply glossed over my name and opted to skip the first part altogether and just call me Abdulla. He's the only person that I've ever known to call me by only my last name, consistently. I ran into him about a year ago, having first had class with him in 2001 and found out that he still calls me, simply, Abdulla.

I'm not even going to talk about what happened when that stupid Don't Mess With the Zohan movie came out.

At the Toyota dealership a few weeks ago one of the dudes from maintenance came up to me and asked me if I owned a Prius. I said yes and he told me my car was done and ready to be paid for. Usually they just call your name on the loud speaker but I had my headphones in and couldn't hear. Anyhow. I went up to the counter to pay for whatever it was they were fixing when the lady behind the counter said, in a Mexican accent, "Oh! It's your car! I was calling Zwa-hurr for like 10 minutes! Just me saying 'Zwa-hurr, Zwa-hurr, your car is ready.'" I told her I was wearing headphones and couldn't hear, but didn't mention that even if I could hear, I still would have had no idea that my car was ready.

There's a guy who does handiwork at the house that I work at. I've seen him probably once a week or at least twice a month since I started working here in August of last year. We don't talk much but we always do a little stop and chat. His name is Justin and he's addressed me by name many times. I went on tour for about 5 weeks starting at the end of March. When I returned back to the office the week after tour ended I saw him and said hello. He responded with, "Oh hey Zuha (Zoo-ha, as in Zoo-ha got you all in check!), how's it going?" He also ended the conversation with, "Good seeing you again, Zuha!" I guess 6 weeks of not seeing me makes you forget the last two letters of my name.

I can't remember exactly where this happened but I was at a somewhat loud party when one of my friends decided to introduce me to the lady he brought. She was very, very, clearly not interested in meeting me and wasn't really paying attention at all. So when I said, "Hi, I'm Zuhair, nice to meet you," she very bitchily responded with "What's a Zuhair?"

When I was a child, a little baby Zuhair if you will, all the other children used to call me Poohair. I believe though, that that was somewhat intentional.

Success!

Saturday had me watching one of my favorite bands ever, Wilco. It was, hands down, the best show I've ever been to in my life. And I saw Weezer 3 times before they got all shitty! In fact, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it; It was the best anything ever. For Wilco fans out there, here's what they played:

1. Wilco (The Song)
2. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
3. Bull Black Nova
4. You Are My Face
5. One Wing
6. A Shot In The Arm
7. Radio Cure
8. Impossible Germany
9. Deeper Down
10. Pick Up The Change
11. Can't Stand It
12. Jesus, Etc.
13. Hate It Here
14. You Never Know
15. Theologians
16. Walken
17. I'm The Man Who Loves You
18. Hummingbird
// E1: 19. Passenger Side
20. California Stars
21. Misunderstood
22. Happy Birthday
23. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
// E2:
24. Kingpin
25. Monday
26. Hoodoo Voodoo

Don't know if you noticed that there, but they did two encores!

They didn't play a few jams that I really wanted to hear, but they had such a good set list it didn't really matter. Plus they played Misunderstood which is goddamned incredible. Here it is, the live version off of Kicking Television:

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

#

I couldn't find a really good live video of the whole song, there's one from Lollapalooza '08 that was pretty good but then I noticed it didn't have the lead guitar in the mix, what up with that sound guy? Anyhow, so instead I've just embedded this short clip from I am Trying to Break Your Heart of just the end bits.