Willy Wonka & Slayer

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Sunday's Photo Gig

Hello Jim & Kim fanatics...and welcome to JimmyPowell.com!
A fun & entertaining site where you can get a glimpse into our little world!

Today was a "special" day as I think the produce clerk at the local grocery store was well.....either really, really nice or totally "into" me. I was getting some baked potatoes and asparagus when the Von's produce clerk came by and said hello and asked how I was. I told him I was fine and he asked if I needed any help. I politely said I didn't but thanks and then he assured me that if I needed anything he'd be glad to help...smiling the whole time.

At first I was like "Wow, what a nice guy" but then I noticed he didn't offer the same great service to the other peeps milling around in the produce department. I also realized I was wearing one of my coolest get-ups and looking rather good if I do say so myself. Ha-ha!

So I move on, do some more shopping but then I had to go back to the produce department cause I forgot to get a lime. I tried not to make eye contact so as not to send the wrong signals and as I got my lime and was exiting the produce department he went out of his way to smile and say "Have a good weekend" in his best, super-friendly voice.

I said "you too" and left wondering if he was checking out my ass. I guess I deserve it though...I used to work in a grocery store and did the same thing (along with every other guy) to any hot chicks that came into the store.

"Can I help you find anything Maam?"

Yeah, all us Food Lion boys weren't really trying to give great customer service. We were trying to give something else...LMAO!

So that's my little story. Hope you enjoyed it.

I've probably said this before but I gotta say it again. I'm so ready for our troops to get out of Iraq. I was all for taking down Saddam and overthrowing his evil regime but we accomplished that in the first year. Why are we still there and what are Americans dying for every single day? Iraq really has become the new Vietnam and there's nothing more that we can do for the Iraq's. We've done the hard part...it should be up to them to do the rest. What's worse is that while we're bogged down in Iraq, Iran (whose supplying the insurgents with weapons and bomb material) are developing the nuclear weapons which Iraq never had. We should be bombing Iran right now and not dying for nothing in Iraq.

The entire Bush administration seems to be disconnected from reality if they really believe that "Iraq is a critical front in the war on terror, and victory there is critical to the future security of the U.S." I think they've been drinking to much of their own Kool-aid.

I can't for the life of me understand why we're dying in Iraq in protect America while doing nothing about the 1500-2000 people who enter this country illegally every single day from Mexico. Osama Bin Laden could march right into America tomorrow if he wanted to and chances are he'd never get caught.

I voted for George W. Bush simply because I couldn't stand John Kerry but I find it really hard to believe that we have 3 more years of this clueless, moron.

Self explanatory...

Today was Kim's birthday and she got lots of cards, emails and phone calls wishing her a Happy Birthday. Barry & Shannon were even cool enough to give her a post on their website...before I was able to put one on my site at that. Granted, I stayed up late to hide a myriad of b-day cards all over the house and in Kim's car. I also gave her some crab dishes and platters that she wanted which you can barely make out in this pic.

I also cooked her a birthday dinner consisting of a Garlic Pepper Tri-tip, baked potatoes and Hawaiian rolls.

Here's a shot of the entire Milky Way galaxy with our position in it highlighted. Taken by Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope, it took 400 hours to take this photo and over a year to process all the data.

So here's an odd bit of history for everyone celebrating August 17th birthdays like Kim. Franklin Delanor Roosevelt Jr. was born August 17th, 1914 and died August 17, 1988. Wouldn't it suck to die on your birthday? Then again, dying sucks no matter what day it is.

So this is like the creepiest video I've ever seen and totally gave me the chills. It's a home video of a transsexual named Johnnie Baima tap dancing in girls clothing sans music. He's obviously very deformed physically due to the fact that (a) he had polio as a child, (b) he was physically abused in foster homes for years and (c) is clearly anorexic. In spite of all this, Johnnie Baima (a.k.a. Sandie Crisp) is a hugely popular figure in LA's transvestite scene and was even in a Marilyn Manson video a few years back. This video is rumored to have been a huge underground hit in the LA underground for years and the name Goddess Bunny was bestowed upon this dude (who prefers to be a she) somewhere along the way. Don't ask me.

Warning: This video is very disturbing so watch at your own peril.

• http://www.sterilecowboys.org/archive3/BUNNY.mov

Musad was trying to get into America legally through Immigration. The Immigration Officer said, "Musad, you have passed all the tests, except for one. You cannot enter America unless you pass it." Musad said, "I am ready now sir for taking your testing." The officer said, "Make a sentence using the words Yellow, Pink and Green." Musad thought for a few minutes and said, "Mister Officer, I am ready." The Officer said, "Go ahead." Musad said, "The telephone goes green, green, green, and I pink it up, and say, 'yellow, this is Musad." Musad now lives in a neighborhood near you, and works at Microsoft on the "Help Desk."

• http://www.illwillpress.com/tech.html

Lucas Conrad Burton

Born: August 8, 2005, 5:37pm
9 lbs 1.4 oz, 22.75 inches long

• Why does "attempted murder" often carry a lesser penalty than (successful) "murder". The intention is the same, so why should one be rewarded for failure?

• Here's a fun thing to try the next time you see someone in punk rock gear. You know the guy. He obviously hates his parents and has decided to rebel with a mohawk, plaid pants, face piercings, leather jacket with metal spikes and zippers...the works. Just go up to him and say, "Cool dude! Where did you get that costume?" He'll love that.

• Did you know that Rosanna Arquette has had two popular songs written about her? The first was appropriately called "Rosanna" by Toto? (Meet you all the way...Rossaaaaa-aaaanna) and the second was "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel. I never knew that until last night when I saw it on VH1 or something. She's must be really be into rockers...or they must really be into her...no pun intended...well, maybe not. Ha-ha!

• Some people couldn't be any stupider if they tried. (Video)

• How to react? - From the Showtime series "The L Word"...this dude comes home to find his girl making out with another chick and doesn't know how to react. Why be mad? See if you can join in or at the very least watch...LOL! (Video - Not exactly safe for work...but no nudity or anything)

• Did you know that Texas is now the 4th state where white people are actually the minority? If we don't close the borders soon we're gonna have to rename the country the United States of South America in about 20 years. Yeah...it's cause of illegal immigration. It's estimated that about half a million (500,000) illegal immigrants enter the U.S. each year...that's about 1300 a day...sad but true.

• And last but certainly not least....did you know that Kim's birthday is tomorrow...August 17th? That's right! Don't forget to wish her a happy birthday! You can email her at kim (at) jimmypowell (dot) com.

Instead of taking the weekend off I actually took a weird photography job (in addition to yesterday's scheduled photo gig) that dropped in my lap at the last minute. A company in Santa Monica which makes this little interchangeable head things called Swicherz needed to have all their products photographed for their catalog and to replace all the lackluster photos on their current website. I spent ALL day Sunday photography every variation of these little heads plus their packaging and instructional shots showing how to swap out one head for another...and I still have more to do today.
   

It kinda sucked to lose my Sunday but the money was hard to say no to. And if you ever wondered how catalogs get those perfectly white backgrounds...well, this is one way. I'm pretty well set up to do small to medium sized products.

Somebody needs to remind me what weekends are for cause I keep forgetting. I had to photograph a Chalk Art competition at the Redondo Pier on Saturday which was fun as always but still work. That's all I gots to say about that...yo!

It's funny the varying extremes of entertainment I often take in. We had some free DVD certificates from Best Buy so we headed there Friday night to redeem them. Kim chose the original Willy Wonka and I chose a live Slayer concert DVD. Talk about different ends of the spectrum. Ironically, I watched both that night. Me and Kim crashed on the sofa together and watched Willy Wonka and then Kim went off to bed at which point I watched my Slayer video which was super cool. Slayer certainly isn't for everybody but as a former guitar player, a metal head and an agnostic they're definitely one of my favorite bands. I'm not schizophrenic but I think my taste in entertainment is cause after Slayer I watched something on the History channel.

The Space Shuttle Discovery landed at Edward's Air Force Base early this morning but not before startling us out of bed at 5am with it's sonic boom during re-entry. The whole house rattled this morning enough to wake me which is an accomplishment in itself. I got up and walked around the house to see who I was going to have to murder only to find out at my networking breakfast that it was the Space Shuttle. I guess I'll let them slide. :^)

If you've ever eaten at the Outback Steakhouse you might be familiar with their specialty drink called the Wallaby Darned. It's a concoction of peaches, ice, vodka, peach schnapps, champagne and either peach nectar or fuzzy navel mix. We tried making the drink ourselves Saturday night using the peach nectar and although the result was delicious, it wasn't quite a Wallaby Darned. Next weekend we're gonna try making it with fuzzy navel mix and see how it turns out. We're also gonna add more vodka cause the recipe we used didn't give it enough "kick" as it were.

We kicked back on the sofa with our not-quite-but-still-delicious Wallay Darneds and watched Reservoir Dogs which we had never seen. It was pretty cool but it was the obvious precursor to Pulp Fiction which had many of the same cast members in it.

We did something we don't often do on Friday nights this past weekend...we left the house. We hooked up with our friend Abby and headed down to Sharkeez in Hermosa for dinner and drinks. Sharkeez is thee place to be if you're young and single or just want to mingle with the hip local crowd. To be a bar, their food is pretty amazing...Kim and I were both raving about the burgers we had which goes to show you how "old" we've become. We were in the biggest party club in the South Bay and all we could talk about was the food. Ha-ha!

Ever feel really, really small?

I ran across this intriguing story on another blogger's site and apparently, there is a lot of porn being "stored" or discarded in wooded areas throughout the country. What's even more interesting is that a surprising amount of guys can recall finding porn in the woods during their adolescent years. There's a whole message board of guys who can relate to having this experience during their youth. As I read this bizarre story I realized that I could relate too because me and several guys from my old neighborhood did in fact find porn in the woods not far from where we all lived. I think boys/men have some special chromosome that subconsciously attracts us to porn like a bloodhound.

• http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/22130

No one really knows why so much porn is being "left" in the woods (one can only imagine) but it seems to be huge phenomenon when you read about how many guys have found porn in the woods....at least in the age before the internet. Kids have a lot easier today but that's actually pretty sad. Any 7 year old can see more on the internet in a few hours than I saw in my whole life...until I got the internet...ha-ha!

I wonder if any of the other guys from Seven Oaks remember when we found porn in the woods? Twice actually....Chris? Stacy? Joe? Barry? Greg?

Microsoft has finally released some screenshots of it's next generation operating system, Windows Vista. Previously codenamed Longhorn (us tech geeks called it Long Wait) the new OS is scheduled for delivery in late 2006 and is supposed to be as big an improvement as XP was to all other releases...in other words...it's supposed to rock...but we'll see.

You can check out the screenshots here.