Goatland

2009-03-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

Goatland celebrates Earth Hour: candles, wine, and (unplugged) laptops.

The Continuing Drama of the Goatland Pipes

2008-06-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

Last week, Ben's toilet, shower and floor suffered from a bit of sewage "back up". Not good, but certainly not the worst plumbing disaster Goatland has seen. I called the landlady, who called her brother (as we knew she would) and asked him to take a stab at fixing things. His attempt to clear the pipes resulted in Goatland's worst flooding to date. Both Ben's and Jon's rooms have had most of their carpet torn out and have temporarily been declared hazardous areas.

The final Festivus has been postponed until further notice.

2007-06-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

Honda Civics are the #1 car for teenage drivers....and also at Goatland: http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/07/autos/teen_cars/index.htm

Sorry about the lack of posts, everybody!

What's new at Goatland?

2007-05-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

Hmm...we've had some visitors, including a Goatland almunus. The downstairs bathroom continues to be ridiculous - the shower broke, but at least it was sanitary. We had six new fish, but only five are left. I guess when it comes down to it, domestic life is pretty boring!

Goatland opens a Washington, D.C. branch

2007-03-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

This article has a pretty funny description of democratic congressmen living in a crowded, rat-infested crash pad in Washington D.C. In the evenings, they talk about typical roommate concerns - who owes money for groceries? - and also national policies. For the record, we are cleaner than they are. Goatland does not have rats (or goats).

In other news, Daniel and I are engaged :-)

2007-02-01T21:46:00.000-08:00

The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation is here to help anyone who has suffered a traumatic run-in with goats. If you think that the foundation can help you, please contact one of our counselors.

Goats on a Boat

2007-01-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

Goats on a Boat

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Youtube sucks

2007-01-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

Perverts, meet bureaucracy, your new best friend.

The end.

Tree Goats

2007-01-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

I don't think any words can improve on the picture.

Goatland power outage

2006-12-11T01:18:00.000-08:00

Goatland power outage report for the last...oh hell, since I moved in:

Sat, Nov 18: 2.5 hr
- all five goats
- 1x bottle of wine

Sun, Dec 3: 3 hr
- all five goats
- with special guest Randie "Randie" Kim
- 1x bottle of champagne
- 1x bottle of beer

Sun, Dec 10: 1 hr
- four goats*
- 1x episode of Fawlty Towers
- 1x Xmas tree**

* the goat otherwise known as Jon slept through the power outage
** pictures of the tree coming soon

Power outage

2006-11-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

The power went out earlier tonight. We all grabbed out flashlights, met in the living room, and opened a bottle of wine.

Yep, that's how we goats roll.

The Tale of Two Roombas

2006-11-13T22:08:00.000-08:00

Two more new members of Goatland

New family members

2006-11-12T23:28:00.000-08:00

Meet Julie's William and Harry

(Actually these two are the same frog. The other one is hiding...)

Most expensive purchase?

2006-11-01T15:48:00.000-08:00

The most expensive thing I've ever bought is my car. Second place was last week's dinner and open bar for 98 at Quinn's, an excellent Miami restaurant. My most recent purchase, on the other hand, was an apple cider at Starbucks. They both went on the same corporate credit card.

Guess who I found in Chicago

2006-10-30T16:27:00.000-08:00

I tried to bring him home with me, but I don't think the TSA would let me bring him abroad a 757.

GoatTV

2006-09-20T23:31:00.000-07:00

About half of the Season Pass that I've contributed to the Goatland TiVo contains the word "star" in the title somewhere.

There other half are shows where people talk funny. I'm told those funny-sounding people are called "British".

Festivus

2006-09-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came to Goatland for Festivus! The wrestling match nearly did Goatzilla in, but he has begun to recover. The pole dancing straw goats were a nice touch.

Wow, we're weird.

What's in a name?

2006-09-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

In the past few weeks, it seems that the universe has decided to demonstrate that Brienne, shortened to Bree, is not an uncommon name at all. Keep in mind that I have never met another Brienne, or another Bree who spells her name like I do.

Apparently, though, not only I am not alone, but other Briennes lead VERY interesting lives!

Consider...

On Sep 7, I received the following email:

"Subject: Voyages de Dominique

Hello Brie,

I have a cell phone you can call me on: 06 21 XX XX XX
Let me know about Laurie and Greg. You are my only link to Laurie so
please do not forget me. Tell me too when you get my ticket for Abbou
Dhabi and how I get it. You can contact me with that email but
Telephone is faster.

Take care,
Dominique"

I've blacked out the cell phone number, but 06 is the country code for the Vatican City. Someone else was cc'ed on this email - an artistic person apparently also named Brienne. I think the message was meant for her instead of me.

Then last night, I received a series of emails apparently meant for a Brienne K. who works at a day care center in Ottawa. This Brienne has been invited to appear as an extra in a movie that is filming this weekend. I have a map to the location if anyone wants to drop by - they're looking for more volunteers.

And apparently, a YouTube phenomenon known as LonelyGirl15 has been going on for months now. It features a "doe-eyed" character named Bree, with a "dorky boyfriend" named Daniel.

Maybe this kind of thing happens to the Jim Smiths of the world all the time, but it never does to me! The universe is a very strange and mysterious place.

Off-topic rant

2006-08-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

This awful article, which I first assumed MUST be satire, says that men shouldn't marry women with college educations and full time jobs that pay $30,000 or more. Apparently they should stick to the uneducated and underemployed, in order to avoid being dumped like the narrow-minded jerk who wrote the article.

I found a pretty good rebuttal on slate.com, which rips up the statistics that Forbes quoted pretty thoroughly. The rebuttal reads in part, "If you find yourself in the predicament of being unhappy about the income disparity within your marriage, take my advice: You're going to be unhappy about something, and if you're unhappy about this please shut up and go buy yourself a Fiji vacation." That made me smile....I need a vacation! But I'll be paying for my next one with air and hotel points, I think.

New Goat On The Block

2006-08-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

Hi.

Update

2006-08-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

The biggest news of all: we will soon be welcoming a new Goat to Goatland! Watch this blog for news...

The plumbing disaster has been 85% resolved: the room has new carpet, and it is habitable again. Art (the landlord's brother) is coming one more time to try and fix the bathtub; if it doesn't work, we'll have to have another plumber come out.

Apparently the last plumber's visit caused some serious tension between the landlord and Art, because the bill was higher than she thought was reasonable. She wasn't here to see how truly disgusting and awful and NECESSARY the bill was! Hopefully Art will continue to work towards a fully functional bathroom, and not give in to the landlord's financial goals...they just raised our rent anyway, so they've made up the cost of the plumber's visit.

I finally ordered a china hutch, too, so we can stop putting our wine glasses on the ground.

Plumbing disaster

2006-07-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a stinky weekend at Goatland. The toilet in Steve's old room backed up in some sort of nasty sewage explosion (odd, since no one has used it in months), covering the bathroom and linoleum with about a 1/4 inch of nasty sewage water. The water immediately began soaking into the carpet, and made it almost through the doorway. All the carpet in the room had to be removed. The entire room has been quarantined and covered in bleach until we can figure out what else to do. The plumber who came spent about 5 hours and $700 trying to clear whatever was blocking the pipes....yuck!

This was by far the most revolting thing that I have been near in years. When I went in to the room for the first time, the stench was overpowering and I nearly vomited.

Thank you to Art, our landlord's brother, and his whole family who graciously and quickly changed their weekend plans to help us with this.

Côtes du Goatland

2006-05-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

We've always been proud of our goat tradition at Goatland -- we often try to bring in goat themes to things for no other reason than that out house has "goat" in the name. We have the Christmas goats, the goat X-ing sign, the meal with goat, goat milk and goat cheese and, of course, our favorite wines: Goats do Roam and Goat-Roti (which are great both because they have "goat" in the name and because, like me, they're South African.)

As some background, we're kind-of wannabe wine snobs -- we have two big wine racks and more wine than will fit in them, and we even took two quarters of Viticulture at Stanford, but in reality we wouldn't recognize the name of a major wine region in France if we heard it. That's why it was a bit of a surprise when, after he heard the name of our house, my father immediately suggested "You should drink Goats do Roam -- the wine named with the silly pun on Côtes du Rhône". Yes, it turns out Côtes du Rhône is a major wine region in France, with Côte Rôtie being one of the oldest vineyards. There's even a trademark dispute: http://www.decanter.com/news/47909.html

2006-05-09T16:43:00.000-07:00

According to the local paper, Googlers boosted California's tax revenue by about half a billion dollars this year (responsible for 1/8 of a $4.3 billion increase). The average tax bill approaches what most people earn in a decade. Way to go Google, drinks are on me! And liquor licenses, roads, police, and schools are definitely on you! :-)

The newest member of the family

2006-04-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Luc Robert, Brienne's cousin. He's cute, he's cuddly, and his name is French like mine!

Baby pictures are online these days. He'll be blogging before we know it.

the faint

2006-04-02T03:15:00.000-07:00

Get your hot fainting goat action. God, bless, the, internet.

2006-03-27T15:21:00.000-08:00

Does anyone have a china cabinet or a hutch? How about a bookshelf?

All the hardwood looks really pretty but it's annoying to put things on the floor!

End of an era

2006-03-14T14:35:00.000-08:00

There's an article in today's New York Times called "Inviting Anarchy Into My Home," and although we aren't anarchists, some parts ring true.

For instance, "For me, a household of friends — more loosely bound than a family but tied together by loyalty, affinity and shared space — satisfies a need for kinship and companionship" that a more traditional arrangement could not.

And also, "I have friends who tell me they could not live the way I do. I believe them. The constant sound of footsteps on the stairs, the coffee cups in the sink, the mysterious things in the refrigerator that no one claims, the sheer intensity some days of so many personalities rubbing up against one another, is not for everyone. But then neither are more conventional living arrangements."

It was great while it lasted. Best wishes to Steve and Barnali as they leave for more mainstream alternate living arrangements.

2006-02-19T15:47:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my sister for passing this along. The Stanford Tree mascot has been dismissed from her post for public intoxication, and she also claims to have never been much of a sports fan. Sorry Meg, we'll post more often!

http://www.rammerjammeryellowhammer.com/weblog/archives/2006/02/stanford_tree_m.html

Happy New Year

2006-01-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

Well the holidays are over, but our tree is still up! I think my new year's resolution is to take down the Christmas tree and lights.

Over the long new year's weekend, my sister cheered for USC's valiant but ultimately unsuccessful efforts in the Rose Bowl. Here she is getting ready to go to the stadium (she's the one with dark hair):

The second photo was taken at the game. As a house full of Stanford alums, we may have said some mean things about USC at one point or another, but I will say this: despite all the pageantry and posing that is associated with college sports, every USC student I've met is down to earth (even in LA) and genuinely proud of their school.

Fight on!

Newspaperless generation

2005-12-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

Whenever I take out the trash on Tuesdays, I also collect the last week's worth of SF Examiner papers scattered around the driveway, pull them out of their plastic bags ad recycle them. There are six people who live in Goatland, and all of us read the news regularly (very regularly in Jon's case), but none of us have found a use for a daily newspaper -- even a relatively compact one like the Examiner.

Today I called their circulation number and asked them to stop sending it. On a side note, I wish the subscription was opt-in rather than opt-out.

Goat on a trampoline

2005-11-06T12:49:00.000-08:00

We need to get a trampoline. And a goat.

2005-10-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

Scene: Steve is driving a car, with Jon and Daniel as passengers. They are going to see Serenity, and are just pulling in to the parking garage.

Daniel: "Oh, there's a spot. Is that a good place to park? Is there anything wrong with a G spot?"

The Laptop Club

2005-10-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted, but I thought I'd let everyone know about the cool, hip way Goatland spends Sunday afternoons... around the dining room table at the laptop club! (Well, 4 out of 6 of us anyway.) Jon is actually on the couch watching the St. Louis vs. Cardinals game from earlier (shhh! he'll be happy, but don't tell him Houston is going to win, he wants to be surprised). Barnali is MIA, in her room working I think. And now the laptop club...

Bree is working at one end of the table. Daniel is enjoying his newly purchased Age of Empires (which for the longest time I thought was the Age of Vampires, which sounded so much cooler -- think Buffy kicking ass through the ages). Steve is the newest addition to the table, and judging by the way he keeps pressing his fingers to his temples, he seems to be thinking pretty hard. I'm also working, aka clearing my inbox, though earlier I started a music war to counter the soundtrack of Daniel's Empire (lots of dinging bells, birds tweeting and the striking sound of metal on metal as his little people engage in swordfights). Beethoven's 9th was the first music (thanks for the sample, Microsoft!) I found on my computer, then Steve countered with the classic "All I Really Want" by Alanis Morisette featuring backup vocals by Bree and I, and the round finished off with "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" by Frank Sinatra. Okay, it wasn't really a war, but it was fun for a bit... and now we're back to Empire sounds and the baseball commentator.

That's the end. No point really, it's just funny that 4 of us are sitting at the dining room table with our laptops. Hope your Sunday was as relaxing as ours has been for the last few hours. :)

The Heir of Kalanglasia

2005-10-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

My niece wrote a novel! Check out The Heir of Kalanglasia by Amy Scanes.

Las Vegas

2005-09-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

So, four of us are in Las Vegas right now, one's in Austin, and one's in New York. Las Vegas was great! The view from the Stratosphere was really cool, but the Bellagio and the Wynn were the nicest hotels. And in my opinion, Paris has the nicest gambling floor! The Venetian had the coolest attraction (gondola rides) and the best fake sky.

Photos from New York

2005-09-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

My first set of New York photos: http://xenon.stanford.edu/~dmwright/photos/new_york/ (sadly iPhoto's web export is a little disappointing)

Goodbye Silver Oak

2005-09-05T22:11:00.000-07:00

The career changes continue...a friend asked me how big my company is, and I said, "100, but next week it will be 25,000".

Does anyone know what it's like to work for CGI-AMS?

2005-08-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

Thoughts from my mom:

"I was thinking--you all in Goatland could get married and continue to live together and raise each other's kids--just like a commune."

Canine IQ Test

2005-08-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

Lucas came to visit again this weekend, so we decided to administer a canine IQ test (he was just below average).

Congratulations Barnali!

2005-08-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

Goatland has now earned at least 3 promotions in the last 2 years. I say "at least" because it depends how you count. Does changing jobs voluntarily count, since the new job is better than the old one? There have been about 4 of those (Steve -> Google, Julie -> Temp at Google, Julie -> Full time at Google, Julie -> New role at Google...Clearly, Julie embodies the new economy, and Google is the place to be). We're climbing the ladder.

Hooray, careerism!

Goat Crowned King of Ireland

2005-08-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

Details here.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - A wild mountain goat was crowned King of Ireland on Wednesday in an ancient annual ritual whose origins are lost in the mists of history.

For three days, Charlie, a grey male goat with brown trimmings, will reign over this year's Puck Fair -- one of Ireland's oldest and best-loved street festivals -- in Killorglin, in the southwestern county of Kerry.

"Nobody really knows how it came about or when," said Jean Kearney, a spokeswoman for the festival, which is expected this year to attract more than 100,000 visitors for a marathon of music, drinking and dancing.

One theory is that the event pays tribute to a wild goat that alerted the town to the advancing armies of military leader Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century.

2005-08-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

Who's coming and who's going at Goatland? It's been a while since we posted...

In mid-July, my brother Jesse met up with me in Madison, Wisconsin! He and his friends were biking across the country and went 100 miles that day so we could all go out for dinner. Impressive!

Daniel and I just got back from a week in the Dominican Republic and a day in New York.

Speaking of New York, Jon is going there for a month!

Steve's sister Holly came to visit, and Julie is planning a trip to Disneyland. And of course, Barnali's been to Seattle/Olympia, WA many many times.

I guess in all that travel, we forgot to update the blog.

Camel jockeys

2005-07-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

This is not goat-related.

The BBC reports that the United Arab Emirates has passed a law tightening a ban on children taking part in camel racing. According to the article, "Both the Emirates and Qatar are planning to replace child jockeys with mechanical ones in the near future."

Technology marches on.

2005-07-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th or 5th of July everyone!

Most of us went up to San Francisco, and then up onto a roof, to try and watch the big fireworks show. We had a dramatic view of the city, but there was fog over the bay. It was also very windy! We ended up watching the main show on TV, but we did see some fireworks from local residents while we were outside.

Also, we built a campfire (not on the roof).

Somehow or other, our sparklers went unused for the second year in a row.

Scale

2005-06-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

Lucas (the "dog" we babysat)	3 lbs
Pigmy goat	50 lbs
me	194 lbs
Large dairy goat	300 lbs
Gorilla (male)	350 lbs
400 pound gorilla	400 lbs
Anaconda	500 lbs
Lion	500 lbs
Giant squid	2,000 lbs
My Honda Civic	2,700 lbs
Giraffe	3,000 lbs
White rhino	4,000 lbs
Hippo	7,000 lbs
Hummer H1	8000 lbs
Elephant	7,000 - 13,000 lbs
Columbian Mammoth	10,000 lbs
Tyrannosaurus rex	13,000 lbs
Baluchitherium (largest land mammal)	20,000 lbs
Diplodocus	22,000 lbs
Whale-shark	26,000 lbs
M1A1 tank	135,000 lbs
Brachiosaurus (largest land animal)	140,000 lbs
Blue whale	300,000 lbs
2,200 acre honey mushroom in Oregon	400,000 lbs
Boeing 747-400	400,000 lbs
Caltrain (locomotive + 4 cars)	750,000 lbs
General Sherman (giant sequoia)	4,000,000 lbs
Aspen clone in Utah (many trees but all one organism)	13,000,000 lbs
Titanic	92,000,000 lbs
Nimitz Class aircraft carrier, fully loaded	200,000,000 lbs
Pluto	28,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lbs

Steve Jobs' commencement speech

2005-06-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

Compare the different accounts of Steve Jobs' commencement speech:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/grad-061505.html

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67836,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6

In particular, the Stanford Report seems to be lacking the "Steve Jobs told Stanford University graduates Sunday that dropping out of college was one of the best decisions he ever made because it forced him to be innovative" line.

leaping goat

2005-06-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.livejournal.com/community/jumpingpictures/240817.html

Someone else post something!

2005-05-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

Thank you.

2005-05-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

I just found out my brother will be in beautiful Ehime, Japan for a year! I'm going. Who's coming?

2005-05-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

I saw the first hummingbird of the season yesterday! He was checking out the bougainvillea, which hasn't even bloomed yet. I hung up a feeder for him and thought of my Grandma, and her deck with all the birds and squirrels in Spokane.

Hopefully this year we can keep the yellowjackets away. Although the bird vs. bee fights last year were pretty interesting, they pretty much kept us off the deck for two weeks.

On the road again

2005-05-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

Six people live at our house, but it seems like no one's ever home! Here are all the airports (that I know of) that Goatlanders already plan to use this summer:

DEN (x 10 or more transits)
HNL (x 8)
IAD (x 4)
JFK (x 4)
LIH (x 4)
MSN (x 10+)
ORD (x 4+)
POP (x 4)
PSC (x 2)
SEA (x 10+)
SFO (x 52+)

That's a lot of frequent flier miles.

No goat-hunting over the internet

2005-05-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

If the California state Senate has its way, we'll have to scrap plans for an internet-controlled rifle in the back yard to let people hunt goats and roaming cats remotely.

Delite Update

2005-05-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

It turns out the Delite Salon has been under investigation for awhile. There might be all sorts of stuff going on there: embezzlement, elder abuse, bigamy, and prostitution!

non-goat pet

2005-04-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

This week we had a special guest at Goatland. His name is Lucas, and Julie has been dog-sitting him since Wednesday. He goes back to his lucky owner tomorrow, so I snapped a few photos tonight...

so CUTE!

holy goat gonads!

2005-04-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Speaking of goats, this was mentioned on NPR's Fresh Air today, which talked about border radio stations from the 20's and 30's:

"The great-grandfather of shock radio, Brinkley was the first broadcaster to have his license taken away by the FCC. A down-home-sounding physician who originally built a radio station in order to entertain the patients who came to his clinic in Kansas, Brinkley offered his patients something better than Viagra. He claimed that he could counteract male impotency by transplanting goat gonads into the human scrotum. Thousands of individuals underwent the procedure in hopes of becoming, as the good doctor put it, 'the-ram-that-am-with-every-lamb.'"

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol17/issue37/music.capstar.html

2005-04-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

I know our loyal readers have complained that we don't say enough on this blog. Rest assured, we don't say much to each other, either. Here are the last five emails I got from my housemates, word for word:

Barnali Dasverma to GoatLand
Ditto.

Jon McAlister to Barnali, GoatLand
Woof.

Steven Young to Jon, Barnali, GoatLand
Meow. Rowr. Hisssss.

Daniel Wright to Steven, Jon, Barnali, GoatLand
<fish noises>

Jon McAlister to Daniel, Steven, Barnali, GoatLand
<pet rock noises>

So what's in that bag in the basement?

2005-04-01T18:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/01/nichols.house.search.ap/index.html

"Georgia Rucker has owned the home since 1997 and rented it several times."
...
"She said she was told authorities had information that explosive material was in a crawl space of the house, which has a half-basement."
...
"The information so far indicates the items have been there since prior to the Oklahoma City bombing"

2005-03-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

We seem to be collecting things from houseguests. Did anyone lose a cell phone charger?

local brothel

2005-03-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

Just head on down to the Delite Salon Day Spa, and ask for a massage.

happy commerce =)

Jon finds 5 four-leaf clovers and 1 six-leaf clover!

2005-03-17T13:34:00.000-08:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

2005-03-11T10:57:00.000-08:00

Not surprisingly, Sears' "beer for delivery" plan fell through. Does anyone have a pickup truck?

goat movies

2005-03-10T23:42:00.000-08:00

So, has anyone out there ever heard of any movies which involve goats? Ahem, movies which are GOOD, either in a real or a stupid way. Bonus points if said movie can actually be obtained at a library or a video store or on netflix.

in the news

2005-03-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

"The city of Millbrae will offer free compost to residents on March 5 as a thank you to residents for participating in recycling programs. The compost is made from yard waste that is collected at the local curbsides every other week.

The compost will be available on March 5 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on the Spur Trail on Millbrae Avenue between Willow and Poplar avenues.

There is a 60-gallon limit for each household. A shovel, containers and proof of Millbrae residency are required." link

Millbrae is FUCKED UP.

in the news

2005-02-25T12:34:00.000-08:00

"A dead duck was spotted on East Millbrae Avenue near the Highway 101 overpass in Millbrae at 7:11 a.m. Tuesday." link

Yeah... the police in Millbrae are like, really busy.

we's connected

2005-02-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

While booking a cab this morning, I gave my address, and then the guy asked, "Do you know Bree?". Oh hell yes, oh hell yes.

2005-02-14T10:50:00.000-08:00

Updates:

We bought a TV and stand on Super Bowl Sunday just prior to kick-off. We recorded the game while we set everything up, then fast-forwarded to watch the commercials.

We will soon have some sort of exercise equipment, assuming the delivery plan works out. The Sears salesman said he has a friend with a truck, and he can save us the $50 delivery fee if we just give his buddy a six-pack of beer. We'll see.

Steve had a Valentine's birthday party with a lot of balloons and cookies.

Crabgrass (front yard) and clovers (back yard) are thriving; things we want to grow remain unresponsive, except for the rosemary bush with blue flowers.

Frankie, a blue molly, has completely disappeared.

2005-02-06T13:16:00.000-08:00

From The Rooster & you:

"The Goat will not appreciate the quick and erratic pace of the Rooster year. Though he will be able to dodge what surprises may be thrown his way, he will not take chances. And rightly so, since not much will go right with the Goat person this year. He may find his plans scuttled and romance fizzling.

Unexpected turn of events can upset the best of plans, so always work with a contingency plan in mind. Things will right themselves if the Goat's birth element is compatible with wood."

Citizen Dan

2005-02-03T22:07:00.000-08:00

Daniel took his citizenship test today. Oh wait, that's not quite true. Let me rephrase. Daniel fucking slaughtered his citizenship test today! He's so citizen. Oh yeah. We had champagne and cheese to celebrate, and then somehow ended up toasting to Steve's ability to remain risk averse whilst inebriated.

2005-01-31T16:28:00.000-08:00

Shortly after the goat heart comment, Julie started laughing at the moon, which looked "gross", and we all started laughing at Julie for not being able to explain why. Turns out that sometimes, you just need to laugh!

2005-01-30T22:58:00.000-08:00

Julie: "We should get a Valentine's tree for the corner."
Daniel: "How about some roses?"
Jon: "Can I put a still-beating goat's heart on the floor?"

...pause...

Bree and Julie: "No."
Jon: sighs, "Fine."

out of the past...

2005-01-27T16:02:00.000-08:00

...comes this picture, from about a year ago, of the male goatlanders at the Super Happy Fun House: Apparently the lighting was red.

shoes

2005-01-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

It turns out I was wrong about Steve having more shoes than Barnali. Barnali has 15 pairs of shoes, and Steve has 14 pairs. Oh well...

bday at asiasf

2005-01-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

Last night, to celebrate Bree's birthday, Goatland went to AsiaSF. If you ever want to understand what it means to be Californian, this is the restaurant you should go to. During the dinner, the ladies of AsiaSF gave lip-synched song&dance performances. My favorite was Everybody's Girl from the musical Steel Pier. Here's a gem of a line from it:
"I could never be a cowhand's girl. And you wanna know why? I just can't keep my calves together."
Anyhow, the performances were great as well as the food. Then, several of us took blow job shots from the laps of the ladies. Then, we had ice cream. Then, Bree got a free drink coupon since it was her birthday, and I got *two* free drink coupons since I had recommended the restaurant. We went downstairs to the dancefloor and had more drinks and danced for awhile. We spent a good amount of time experiencing the novelty of Bree's brother Jesse's hat. There was also a jar of condoms downstairs, and Steve sneaked condoms into several of our back pockets.

Bree is now in Mexico.

2005-01-08T12:39:00.000-08:00

Bree, in conversation with her mother over Christmas: Bree's Mom: "Jon should really get together with Julie." Bree: "Yeah... not so much. Actually, Jon's managed to find an exact replica of himself, and he's dating her now."

2004-12-29T17:23:00.000-08:00

The recent rainstorms seem to have done quite a bit of damage to our deck! Underneath the wood is a layer of corrugated plastic sheeting, which has partially fallen off due to wind, water, or both. It's hanging down quite low and is covered in mold and mud.

This is a problem because it means the wood, which was never totally stable anyway, has been completely soaked through and might not be sturdy or safe. Even in the best of times, an "extra" support pillar is needed to keep the deck from sliding off the hill.

Our landlords once told us the deck could hold 150 people, but they wouldn't put it in writing. I wonder how they'll deal with this...it might be time to give a city/county engineer a call.

This year's must-have gift: A goat

2004-12-23T13:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/12/23/oxfam.goats/index.html

a very goatland xmas

2004-12-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

champagne, moscato, glögg, pears in red wine sauce, garlic chicken pasta, creme brûlée, herring on jewish rye, stereolab, bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon, bree, monterey jack, muenster, almond chedder, cocktail shrimp, godiva chocolates, chocolate chip cookies, fruit tart, clove oranges, lemon snow drops, stockings, pesto, olive spread, caramel popcorn, prosecco, noble fir xmas tree, candy canes, sugar cookies, ikea xmas goats, lemon curd, maine blueberries, and... presents. in summary, a very fine evening.

Buying Goats

2004-12-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

So, you are thinking of buying goats?

Here comes Santa Claus

2004-12-13T14:31:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, our house is not completely obsessed with goats. Allow me to change the subject momentarily to something more normal, like Christmas.

We thought about celebrating a less commercial holiday, but we already had Festivus in August, and adding a real holiday like Hanukkah or Kwanzaa would have been dubious since our only tie to them is through Daniel's "Jewish" and "African-American" heritage (he went to Catholic school and has skin so light he gets freckles from cooking). So instead we all decided that in honor of this special holiday, we'd go shopping. In the last few weeks we've bought a tree, some mistletoe, ornaments, strings of lights, stockings, cards, stamps, candies...and it isn't over yet.

Not to worry though, all this commercialism has a special Goatland feel to it. For instance, the stockings are hung by the fish tank with care. Pictures will follow...

emo goat hunter

2004-12-09T14:12:00.000-08:00

Soldier's loss is hunter's surprise goat, a "touching" story of how a Montana man was awarded a license to hunt mountain goats, but only because the man who was originally awarded the license ended up serving active duty in the military. Some great quotes: - "When I talked to his dad, we had a lot of discussion," Worsech said. "What the dad said is that he wanted the hunter (Zwicker) to call his son after the hunt and talk with him about how it went." - "I'm an extremely fortunate person. But I still kind of feel bad about the mountain goat." - "I kind of feel bad about it. He had to lose his dream so that my dream came through." This story is so ... repulsive.

goatism

2004-12-07T14:39:00.000-08:00

Everything is a Goat! "It's true! Everything is a Goat, and all appearance to the contrary is mere illusion. Scientists may scoff, and hide behind their hypotheses, but have all physicists since Einstein not been searching for a Grand Unified Theory? Besides, logic supersedes science just as day supersedes night and we can prove by logic that everything is a Goat. ..."

2004-11-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

So Julie, Dan, Bree, Steve, and Barnali have all flown away for Thanksgiving, leaving Goatland empty save me. muahahahaha

goatmas

2004-11-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

You should all be more like Lady Isabella, and buy goats this xmas.

Branding

2004-11-21T23:28:00.000-08:00

I have officially been branded as goat #6504550319

goat goat baby

2004-11-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

So, apparently, Vanilla Ice owns a goat, as well as a wallaroo. Their names are Pancho the goat and Bucky Buckaroo respectively. The Palm Beach Post has all the info on these animals. Of course, no one would have known about Pancho the goat if he hadn't escaped the compound, only to be later claimed by Mr. Van Winkle.

2004-11-12T13:46:00.000-08:00

Wow! Daniel's parents came to visit and brought an amazing copy of Manet's Bar at the Follies Bergere. Daniel's mom painted it herself, and she says it only took a few weeks!

This is the original:

The painting is absolutely beautiful - I can see why it's been Daniel's favorite for a long time. His mother joked that the bar matches the top of our fridge, and she's right:

This photo is quite out-of-date; we have at least 2x that now...plus a beer fridge.

2004-11-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

I was drinking too - iced tea, since I was with my parents. As the map turned red, I wondered how much more blood will be shed for this perverse administration and how much longer can we ask the world to pardon Americans and blame only our leaders. After all, it's a democracy.

-Bree

Goatland drinks to evil as Bush wins re-election...

2004-11-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

The evening of November 2nd brought Goatland together.

At 7 PM, Julie returned home from work, declaring, "I have one hour to
become an educated voter!" Jon and Barnali rallied together, offering
their personal opinions on the various ballot measures, and pulling up
Steve's election matrix containing the various political parties'
positions on the different oppositions. At 7:40 PM, Jon rushed Julie to
the polls so she could get her ballot in before the polls closed!

By 8 PM, all of Goatland except Bree (who was away in Salem) found
themselves gathered around the television. The evening began with
optimism - there was much hope that Kerry would pull through. Then, one
after another, the networks called Florida, CNN being the last to do
so. As the evening wore on, updates from Ohio slowly lowered our
spirits. Finally, a sleepy Barnali heard Daniel say that Fox had called
Ohio (she thinks). By 11 PM or so, Goatland has resigned itself to a
Bush win - Daniel brought out the vodka, and led the house in drinking
to evil.

Damn. It's going to be a scary four (more) years.

daniel's master shake costume

2004-10-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

nutland

2004-10-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

our kitchen is now stocked with 1.58kg peanuts, 0.40kg mixed nuts, .26kg cashews, .21kg sunflower seeds, .11kg pine nuts, and .10kg honey roasted peanuts. we think that steve is storing up for the winter.

Count the people

2004-10-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

then wait until they shift and count them again.

2004-09-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the Greatness of Google, Goatland is Going to Get away. We're all headed to Monterey for the weekend, courtesy of a tight social network and a nice referral bonus.

Possible themes for the weekend:

"Literate Lovers"
- Steinbeck's hometown museum
- Shakespeare festival
- Moonlit waves
- Fancy restaurants

"Goatland Goes Wild"
- Sharks at the aquarium
- Whales in the bay
- Hiking trails
- Bicycles

googland

2004-09-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

Julie joined Google this week! This means that 4 out of 6 Goatlanders now work at Google. Also, this means that 7 people who lived in Arroyo 99-00 are now Googlers.

2004-09-20T16:07:00.000-07:00

News from the “Most Beautiful Goat” competition in Saudi Arabia:

"As prices kept rising, goat breeders were jubilant that goat breeding after all was as profitable as camel breeding."

"Goat fancying is increasing in Qatar, but because Saudi Arabia has banned the export of fodder to Qatar, the hobby has been seriously affected."

Back to work...

silence

2004-09-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

yeah, so there haven't been any updates to the house blog for quite a while. let me fill you in. jon recently got back from his working vacation on the east coast. we now have ddr. we also have a massive oversupply of beer from the festivus party, which jon and daniel are slowly alleviating. jon made chinese chicken buns yesterday, getting back into the habit of fresh bread at goatland. also, we have a hummingbird feeder which works surprisingly well. various goatland relatives come by every so often. for instance, yesterday bree's uncle and aunt dropped by. jon still is striking out with most women, but i think julie is back with matt. i'm not sure. the two in-house relationships seem fine, though.

on friday, we had beer beer revolution, and the honorable aki dropped by. aki wasn't so great at ddr, but his score drastically improved when i picked up his back side. and, last night, we determined the best way to hide money from our future spouses.

2004-09-09T20:16:00.000-07:00

this is a picture of daniel, back from when we were all looking for houses to live in. we didn't up living in this house, as it was in the middle of nowhere, and had very questionable parking...

2004-08-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

Barnali and I jumped off a rocky cliff on Saturday! All in another day's work.

I think the Columbia River gorge is so much nicer than San Francisco. I like hills and open space. Hills covered by buildings just make me sad.

friends

2004-08-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

and now, to make life a little easier on our readers, I present the following analysis:

barnali = rachel
bree = monica
daniel = chandler
jon = joey
julie = phoebe
steve = ross

2004-08-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

Did you know it costs $3.09 per minute to call a Filipino cell phone? Neither did I, and I don't know anyone in the Philippines, either!

I am sick and tired of bureaucracy. I already have debt collectors after me for checks I didn't write. The last thing I need is a fight with the phone company.