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Our dog Dakota was in her first frisbee competition this last Saturday. It was a Skyhoundz open qualifier event and there were teams there from all over the country including Washington, Florida, Texas, Minnesota, and a guest judge from Connecticut. We’d attended the Spring Training the previous week which was hosted by the the Colorado Disc Dogs club, who also hosted the competition we attended. We entered the novice division for distance and accuracy (throw and catch) and both Loni and I threw with Dakota, so she got to run twice in each round. In this event you have a bordered field that’s 50 yards long with five 10 yard zones. It isn’t a perfect rectangle but rather it narrows at each end with the widest zones being in the middle. You can throw from whichever side you prefer, but have to stay on the side you pick for the duration. You’re given 60 seconds to score as many points as possible. The 1st zone is 0 points, the 2nd is 1 point, the 3rd is 2 points, the 4th is 3 points, and the 5th zone is 5 points. Needless to say we needed more practice than Dakota as she caught every well thrown disc, with bonus points (you get a half point extra if all 4 paws are off the ground at the time of the catch), that came her way. I ended up sending one frisbee into a tent and was alot more nervous than I expected to be. Her best score overall between the 2 of us was 9th out of 20 in the novice division. I’ll be damned though if she wasn’t one of the fastest dogs out there and she got alot of attention from the other handlers. The next competition we’ll be going to is June 9th.

We saw some amazing dogs and handlers in the freestyle competition which is what most of the out-of-state teams were competing in. The majority of the dogs were border collies followed by cattle dogs, but there were other breeds as well and the best dog, in my opinion, that we saw was actually a bull terrier. This dog was crazy, it would jump up, hit its handlers chest/hip, do a back-flip off of him and catch a frisbee in mid-air/mid-flip. This was all in the middle of the routine too which was full of other impressive moves both by the dog and his handler.

Watch for ‘kota in the 2008 outdoor games.

-Matt

I grew up on the pumpkin and was, and still am, a Smashing Pumpkins fan. So you’d think I’d be stoked to hear that they’re “back” but it just aint the same. Their first 4 albums were the heart and soul of their collective works, even Aeroplane was tight. Shit got weird with a couple exceptions on Adore in the midst of which Jimmy Chamberlain (the drummer) was let go for being smack out on the horse (a touring keyboardist died too) and fizzeled the final album fizzled. So the split up and Corgan went on to form Zwan, which was with Jimmy again, and other side projects, which Iha tried as well.

So now the Pumpkins are back… but it’s just Corgan and Jimmy still and some other unknown members. So it’s just Zwan, right? Maybe different guitarists and others… but why dredge up the Pumpkins name? Corgans solo project, titled Future Embrace no less, was a joke. I excepted keeping SP after Chamberlain was ousted, but you can’t call it Smashing Pumpkins without Iha and D’arcy. Seems like a desperate grab for cash/attention on Corgan’s part. And the tour schedule is just bizarre; A bunch of places in Germany and a few other European destinations then 9 days in Asheville, NC and 8 nights at The Filmore in San Francisco.

Heard the new single, Tarantula, which has a decent hook and the rest is kinda annoying.

Dammit.

In completely unrelated news I was pondering about comics the other day and really started missing Calvin and Hobbes. I don’t really think there will ever be a better comic strip for the rest of time. Talk about quitting while you were ahead too Waterson… who never licensed a single image and yet the likeness of Calvin peeing on one thing or another dons so many vehicles; mostly trucks.

Speaking of unlicensed images, transmogrifier.org has every single strip available online. Search for “Sunday” to get all the… you guessed it.

-Matt

… and the livings easy.

The slopes have closed and the days are getting longer. From all accounts it would appear that summer is upon us. I’ve got a dirt backyard that’s slowly being overwhelmed by weeds and I care not for the added yard responsibilities that have thrust their ugly heads at me once again. Got some concrete work I need done and I’ll have to stay ever vigilant if I’m to stop Loni from painting the house.

Got the boat all tuned up and am eagerly watching the weather for some warm water to launch her on. Got some pretty tight shows coming to Redrocks this summer too. Already got tickets for the Paid Dues Festival and I’ll have tickets shortly for G.Love and Special Sauce with Slightly Stoopid the following weekend — that whole week could easily be the highlight of the summer and I don’t know which I’m more stoked about. Still got plans to rip up Glendo on their ant covered beach around mid-July and put the SeaHag (boat’s nickname) to the test. I got the broseph in Oregon, a buddy in New York, and another traveling to Chili for a month or so; all whom I’d like to visit this summer as well.

I can’t ever see myself living somewhere though where the seasons don’t change. I need that temperature and weather difference in my year to split up the monotony of it all. Alot of folks seek out warm weather all year but I can’t ever envision myself doing that. Plus I like the snow… but I’m ready to trade it for a few months of sunny weather and warm nights.

Should be a good summer.

-Matt

Did you know that you can shave a bunch of interest off a loan simply by making multiple payments that total the same amount? It’s pretty sweet actually. Basically you’re screwing with the way the bank (or your loan shark) compounds the interest. Say you have a $1000 a month mortgage payment. Instead of making the single monthly payment you’d make 2 monthly payments of $500 instead and a whole lot more will go towards principal instead of interest since you’ve halved the way they compound interest against the loan. In the long run you’d shave about 7.5 years off a 30 year mortgage. Same applies to car loans… you can shave about 5 to 10 months off a 5 year loan

I thought it was pretty cool… and I needed to post something to get that crazy lady off the first post.

-Matt