I miss learning. Not necessarily the type of learning you might get out of a classroom, but that feeling of enlightenment, like you're actually getting something out of what you're doing.

How do you rationalize your work? Pay? Benefits? Sexy secretary?

There was a meetup in some beachside city. Mitchloidolt, Randy, Jeff, Stevethegreat, Brandon, Omair, Mike, SuperRyan, and other dudes I can't remember.

We were in a hotel room, just chilling. Mitch was talking about a cool poster he designed. When we finished with the greetings and general chatter, we decided to get some breakfast.

As everyone else was walking out, the hotel phone rang. I answered it. It was the front desk. "We've been getting some noise complaints," he said. I apologized, even though we hadn't been loud and had only been there for 15 minutes. He even asked if we had a dog, to which I answered, "No, we don't have a dog."

The others were already outside by the time I hung up. I walked downstairs--it turned out our room was right above the front desk area, hence the complaints?--and out the front door. It was the perfect summer day. I walked around, looking for the others. I was about to call when I rounded the bend and saw Omair and Mike sitting at an outdoor cafe.

They were talking about flirting with girls. Omair had spilled milk on his pants but he had this sign that read:

Wipe milk
"What"
150

Whenever a girl walked by, he'd hold the sign up. If the girl wiped the milk off his pants, he'd say "what". The 150 was how many girls had apparently done it so far.

Mike had a sign, too. It read:

Hit my throat
Hiccup
0

Which translated to if you hit his throat, he'd hiccup. No girls had done it, though that was more because he had only made the sign as I walked up to them, not from lack of interest.

That's not really far off from how either of them might flirt with a girl.

The rest of the dream is muddled. I do remember relocating with Omair and Mike--and their signs--to this park bench where two other random guys were selling shoes. And then Randy, Jeff, and Steve were taking pictures in some sort of tower/church.

So far this year, two great movies I've seen are The Raid and The Cabin in the Woods--both of which you should see right freaking now.

Movies I'm looking forward to:

The Avengers
The Dark Knight Rises
The Amazing Spider-man
Looper
Prometheus
Moonrise Kingdom
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Smashed
V/H/S
Safety Not Guaranteed
Sleepwalk With Me
Life of Pi (sort of?)

Although I'm only mildly excited for The Hobbit, I'm exceptionally curious about how it looks in 48 fps. From what I've read, it sounds like a big change and a huge departure from 24 fps, but it's also been touted as "the future of cinema" in a way that far exceeds 3D.

And then there's The Great Gatsby. Directed by Baz Luhrman.

That's all I can remember off the top of my head. Who knows what will get announced later on?

Also, Omair, you coming over to my house and then we go to The Avengers or do you want me to pick up Mike and then head to somewhere around your place?

Wherein ToraSteve and I recall pro-wrestling, but y'all can join in too.

And after watching this video, I just realized I have no idea what Ric Flair is saying at any given time.

Steve the Great wants to go out with you on a date to do sports and talk about East coast things. If you say no, he will sit in the dark and listen to Death Cab for Cutie all night.

I've recently been suffering migraines on a weekly basis. They start every Thursday, anywhere from an hour before leaving work to a couple hours or so after I clock out. I actually didn't realize the pattern until today.

Do you have any tips save for pills and/or removing my brain from my skull?

After about two years, a wedding, and several earthquakes, Kimby somehow managed to get me a Summer Secret Santa gift.

First, the package was super heavy. And according to the customs sheet, it contained books, stationery, and confectionery. These are coincidentally THREE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS.

Okay, so first, this box. Look at it. It's huge and awesome.



Do you understand how many awesome things can fit in this box? THIS MANY.



The first present.





Love AND Threadhugs. And yes, it's Kimby.



Get it! Because it's GOLDENDUST. Like her USERNAME. It didn't taste very good though.

Oh and every gift was wrapped neatly and had notes and drawings. I don't understand how people can wrap things so well. If it were up to me, everything would be wrapped in aluminum foil.





Comma dogs~



These things are strange but in the most adorable way. I've named them Wally and Kyle because Wally West had a yellow costume when he was Kid Flash and Kyle Rayner is my preferred Green Lantern. Dealwithit.

Musical instrument?



The best musical instrument.



It warbles AND sings. I haven't tired it yet though, but I'll make sure to include it in the track Mike and I aren't working on.

Some of the gifts had little clothes pin things.



I like the shop Kimby drew. That's the type of building I hope to live in some day.

And inside was...



But not just any kind of fudge.



Hokey Pokey flavor, which is a Kiwi thing. I'm fine with that.

Next was



I love tacky souvenirs from New Zealand.

Also





Sweet jigsaw postcard! I'm just not taking this apart because I'm not good at puzzles. But look at that place. I want to go to there. Fuck you, natural disasters!

Plink-a-plink-a-plink-a is pretty accurate to how ukes sound.



I was pretty sure there wasn't a uke in there. Inside was



I've been needing picks for my uke and these are great. They also look and feel super nice. I'll have to test them out soon.

This package contained space.





I've never had these, but the box art is OUT OF THIS WORLD (get it).





And they look like cigarettes or some sort of drug.



They tasted pretty good. I hope they're not gum though. They had that bubblegum flavor but I just swallowed a few of them like nothing. Am I going to die?



Hands.



Why hands?



That's why hands.



You know, that's sort of something I wanted to do, but I haven't written poetry in a while. If I do write another poem, I'll make sure to call you up so we can work on something like this together.



The chapbook~



It was super lovely, though not nearly as lovely as Kimby.



I pretended!

Inside was this thick journal.



I shall write many a thing in it and record all of my travels and travails.

And she packed a pen to help.



It was the high-tech kind.



No such thing as too much stationery.





Notes to self.



I've actually really been needing something like this, and I like that there's a "put in novel" box.



I wasn't really sure what to expect from this.



But then I was like "oh?"



It was also around this point that I realized I was using the artsy camera app on my phone instead of the normal camera. Duh, Alvin.

Anyway.



This was seriously my favorite gift. I've been thinking about Nori for weeks now and I miss her a ton.

But there was more stuff at the bottom.



They're like wooden model things that you can make. I love doing stuff with my hands and these are awesome.

There's a CD storage thing. (I need to get some CDs!)



A tape dispenser. (I need to get some tape!)



And a desk organizer. (I need to get some desk!)



And everything together.



Some of the pictures are sideways even though I've rotated them. Maybe it takes time to update, but I'll fix them l8r.

Thank you, Kimby. This was totally worth the wait. I wasn't expecting nearly this much awesome stuff, and I'm sincerely touched by how much thought you put into everything. A million times thank you.

And to everyone else, if you do Summer Secret Santa, you should get Kimby.

I dreamed Steve (the Great) died. Brandon was the one who broke the news via blogs. And then when you went to Steve's profile, instead of a "This user doesn't want his profile to be seen" thing it said "This user is loved dearly by many people" or something along those lines.

Because Threadless knows when you die or something.

Steve, don't die. I need you in my life.

shimala on Feb 25 '12 at 3:54pm
Just an early heads up. This years meetup will be in mid July and not September like in previous years. The official announcement will be coming soon.

Pupdate:

shimala on Mar 02 '12 at 12:47am
I found out the date was July 14th which is the same weekend as Pitchfork Music fest (good for you, bad for me). Then I was alerted today that Comic Con is that same weekend. It's usually the week after. So now we're going to regroup and go over details tomorrow and probably send out a survey to gauge when you guys think it should be and what we should do.

The reason for the change was to make it easier for those folks in school.

Pupdate 2:

A week or so back, they sent out surveys via email asking for which dates worked best for people. I think only those who signed up for last year's meetup got the survey though. I think.

The suggested dates in the survey were:

July 7th
July 28th
August 25th