deneb

My roommate Chris and I have challenged each other to become vegans for one month. To make it interesting, we have decided to play a five night game of Mystery Can. This is a game where you buy a friend some cans of food, remove the labels (so they are mysterious), then watch as your friend eats at least half of whatever happens to be inside the can of their choosing with their dinner. You can be as cruel as you want, but it is important to keep in mind that they are also buying you mystery cans that you have to eat… I always thought this sounded like a hilarious idea, and what better time to play it than when we are being vegans. It turns out that this is perfect because there is some really nasty stuff out there (quail eggs, strange seafood, etc…) that we can’t eat. It would actually be pretty hard to find something incredibly disgusting that is also vegan and in a can. Then again, I didn’t go to any weird ethnic food stores or anything so I could be wrong. Here are the official rules from theplug.net, where I believe the game originated.

1. Only one Mystery Can per day may be consumed for a period of TEN DAYS. (we are doing five)
2. A Mystery Can may be eaten during any meal.
3. The eater must prepare a main course prior to opening the Mystery Can.
4. The eater must consume at least 50% of the Mystery Can’s contents.
5. The purchaser of a Mystery Can must notify the eater of any specific cooking instructions (i.e. adding water if condensed).
6. Shaking a Mystery Can prior to opening is not only allowed; it is encouraged.
7. Foods unknown to the eater will be revealed after he or she consumes the Mystery Can’s contents.

Indian food may sound like a poor choice for something to eat during mystery can week, but I had some leftover and it needed to be eaten so I figured why not. We decided to split it so we would both eat the same thing for the first night’s main course. Who knows, it might be turn out to be delicious (highly unlikely)! Here are the results from night one:

I decided to go with the big gold can first because it was freaking me out. This thing was huge. Ok it was only twice the size of a regular can, but I didn’t want to get stuck eating the equivalent of a regular sized can on the last night if it turned out to be bile. Might as well get it out of the way first.

 

Opening…

 

Awesome. A 32oz can of whole tomatoes. It could definitely be worse. I do like tomatoes…but what the hell am I going to do with all these.

 

Might as well just pour them in…

 

Hmmm…

 

Wait a second. After warming these up in the microwave, adding a little salt and pepper, this actually tastes really really good. Round one is a success! This actually greatly improved my sub-par stupidly spicy Indian food!

 

Chris’s can…what could it be?

 

Loki could not take the suspense!

 

A nice big can of mushrooms. Mmmm…

 

The mushrooms did not mix as well with the Indian food…

 

Well he ate most of the required half can although he did put some of it in the fridge for later. I believe this might be infringing on the rules of mystery can, but I’ll let it slide this time.

 

 

Well the first night of mystery can was a complete success! Maybe not so much for Chris…but my meal turned out to be extremely delicious! Long live mystery can! Tune in tomorrow for vegan mystery can round two…

Edit: Sorry this is hard to read, I need to fix the padding of the text with this new wider layout…

Well I got a USB MIDI cable delivered to me in the mail yesterday to make my synthesizer work as a controller for my computer. I got it working after a few minutes of messing around with some stuff and was happy that it worked. The only problem was there was a slight delay (like ~0.25 sec) from the time I pressed a key to the time a note would play on the software. Very annoying. After some research I found that I could solve this problem by installing a real time Linux kernel and running this thing called JACK to connect audio inputs, software and whatever. The real time kernel allows my audio software to request instant access to the CPU, which fixes the keyon delay problem for me. Unfortunately everything is pretty buggy and I am getting lots of errors popping up and programs crashing all the time. It is definitely not perfect yet, but I feel like I have done a lot of damage to my extremely complex audio settings in all the programs I am using, so I think I am going to wipe out this installation of Ubuntu, and do a fresh install of Ubuntu Studio, which includes the real time kernel and is optomized for things like audio production. This should make things run much smoother. I am running a version of it right now, but that was just upgraded from my current install of Jaunty 9.04 so everything is still pretty much the same. I have been really blown away with the things I have been able to do with this stuff. Linux makes anything possible with the unbelievable amount of customization you can do to it, right down to the most fundamental parts of the operating system, even if you hardly know what you’re doing. There is no way I could have done anything like this with Windows. Just imagine installing a new Windows kernel…yeah right. Anyways, I want to write more about what I did, but I have to go get my 4th of July weekend on, so that’s all for now.

Well…kinda. It’s actually much more than that. Really I just finally got the VeSTige plugin working on Linux Multimedia Studio, which is awesome. I can now download VST Instrument plugins, put them into piano rolls, play them with my computer keyboard, use LADSPA effects on them, basically do anything I want. What I really want to do is get my synthesizer to work as a controller for this, but I have no idea how to do that…yet. Sure this would all be super easy with expensive equipment and software, but figuring out how to do it yourself for free is much cooler.

Wow. I just got back from the camping trip we’ve been talking about doing for months. It was great times. I haven’t been camping since right after Burning Man so it was good to get out and get dirty again with some cool peeps. Because I have been neglecting this blog so much this year, and because this was such an epic post, I decided it was time to increase my picture sizes. I hope you enjoy the bigger pictures. Now here are some pics from my latest adventure!

 

Trees!

 

Beeeach yayyyy!

 

oooooo…!

 

Chris getting attacked by a ferocious animal!!! Look out Chris!!!!!

 

This is Sid. He is very small and kind of ridiculous. He braved the wind and came to the beach with us though. Good job Sid!

 

I wish it had been this nice the whole trip.

 

Lots of good skipping stones…

 

Caterpillar. These guys were EVERYWHERE.

 

Time for a beach fire. I wish I had a picture of my cool stone sculptures I drunkenly made later…

 

 

Nice.

 

 

DUNE CLIMB!!!!

 

YES

 

View from up top.

 

Chris made it.

 

Greg embraced the sand.

 

Free your mind…

 

Whoa…

 

 

Group picture courtesy of random lady I gave my camera to.

 

Exploring.

 

Back to the campsite. Chili time!

 

We did lots of cooking over this fire. I made some vegetarian chili that turned out pretty good.

 

Let the rain begin…

 

Lake Michigan lookout on top of a 450ft tall insanely steep dune.

 

Huuuge.

 

It is a long way down.

 

Makeout point.

 

Mmmm…

 

It’s really big. Trust me.

 

And that’s the end of the camping adventure. I hope you enjoyed my bigger than normal pictures.

Today Chris and I made cookies. Chris also set up a webcam in our apartment. You can watch us and/or our cats by going here: www.mattbutterfield.com:8080. I know it’s kind of creepy, and the video quality is terrible, but we’re working on that.

I’ve been playing around with Linux a lot lately with lots of help from Chris. I’m running the latest openSUSE if anyone is curious. I also read a book by Linus Torvalds who originally created Linux. It has all been pretty interesting, and once I get a few things straightened out I probably won’t ever have to use ‘windoze’ again. My laptop still sucks balls though…

I have also been working on some music again, thanks to some of the wonderful free software you can run on Linux, which is nice. I’m trying not to become a Linux snob, but once you start using it and you learn about it’s advantages and the philosophy behind it, it’s kind of hard not to become one, because it is pretty cool.

I have been cooking up a storm lately. I suddenly love to cook things all the time. My favorites so far are chicken chili, turkey burgers, these really good potatoes, and chicken parmesan. I think I’m going to try a roasted tomato basil soup tomorrow. Mmmm…. Cooking saves me money and helps me eat healthier, more well-rounded meals. It is also fun to learn new things and it’s a great way to pass some time.

Ummm…other than that I am pretty much sitting around right now. I’m not too sure what to do with myself really, but I’m working on it. Alex has given me one month to decide on something. I have a few ideas, but I’m just not sure yet. Anyone else have ideas?

I want it to be warm outside. Has this winter seemed especially cold for anyone else? Brrr…

I have neglected to mention on here that it is now January 2009 and during the last month of 2008 I was all over the damn country again.  Geez.  First Chris came out to retrieve me from my Seattle/Out West crazy ass adventure that I am still trying to comprehend.  After driving all the way back to Michigan I hung out at home for a while then drove down to Nashville, TN for Christmas at my Aunt’s house.  I met my new cousin, hung out with the fam, and had an interesting time one night downtown at the honky-tonk bars.  Then there was HSC ski trip ‘08 up north at Crystal Mountain which was a lot of fun, but I didn’t take any pictures : (
Now I am in East Lansing of all places.  
Don’t ask me why.
Also: kittens!  Here are some pictures:

 

 

 

 

Rocketfish makes the most comfortable webcams around.

 

Their names are Loki and Oreo.  I think you should be able to figure out which one is Oreo.  (Hint: Not the grey one!) Now here are some pictures from Chris’s visit to me in Seattle last month:

 

Ok one more cat picture…sorry. This is Zoey, the cat I hung out with in Seattle. Zoooeyyyy mreooowwww.

 

Space Needle woaaaaa!!!!!!

 

Seattle with Mt. Rainier in the background like 80 miles away.

 

Capitol Hill, I lived up there somewhere for a few months.

 

Whooosh

 

OH GOD CHRIS LOOK OUT FOR THAT HUGE SPIDER NOOO

 

Bird & Wall

 

Frickin fat squirrel.

 

The Arboretum.

 

Leaf on a bridge

 

Moss on a bridge

 

My car interior, still covered in playa dust! Whew. Finally got it clean a few weeks ago.

 

Chris Moylan

 

 

Sculpture Park

 

 

Find Chris

 

 

 

 

 

Pier that the Real World house was on, haha…

 

End of the sculpture park

 

Rainier

 

 

 

Chris & Mountains

 

 

Mountains at sunset.

 

Cool clouds that were coming off Mt. Rainier, or went over it, or something. They were pretty sweet.

 

So that’s that. I already feel ready for another adventure, even just a mini one would be nice. But alas, I suffer from the annoying problem of having no money left over from all my other adventures…booo!

Woop woop.  I really need some new pictures on here.  However, I have been working a lot and of course I got sick so I’ve been dealing with that on top of everything else.  Blah blah blah complain complain.

Dan Hodges why on Earth would you go anywhere near the Salton Sea?  I have heard terrible things about that place.  If you want to camp in the desert just come to Burning Man next year…At least the ground there is solid enough to drive on, and it isn’t covered in dead fish. Although I do admire your adventurous spirit and intent, and I can’t wait to hear the full story after seeing those pictures. Ok that’s all, this is really just a test post anyways, geez.

Sorry no pictures today, definitely will post some soon, I promise.  I’ve actually been pretty busy here since I’ve come in to Seattle.  Right now I am in a coffee shop on Capitol Hill (the coolest neighborhood, where I hope to live if I stay here) and they are blaring Nirvana.  How stereotypical right?

A few things happened today:

1.  I tried out riding the bus because trying to drive and park in Seattle is just terrible.  Turns out it was really easy, nice and fast, so that is a big plus.

2.  I put labels on 1200 coffee bags for 10 bucks and hour.  Woooo…!

3.  I had a little phone interview for a job which resulted in me adding a little “before and after” editing section to my main website, which I probably should have done a while ago anyways.  I don’t know if I’ll get the job, but at least it got me to do that and at least I finally heard back from someone.

4.  It was cloudy today.  Apparently Seattle is really, really nice in September.  I thought it rained every day here, but I have been in the Northwest for kind of a long time now and I haven’t seen a drop of rain yet.  Actually, this was the first legitimate overcast day I’ve experienced.  I guess it actually does rain like every day starting in a month or so though, which I am ok with.

So that’s a little update on my life.  I am staying with my brother’s old friend Caleb Woods here in Capitol Hill.  I really like the area.  I hope something works out soon, I am getting sick of being all up in the air about everything and whatnot.  I’m starting to get a little dizzy from life.

On saturday night the man burned. Sunday morning I woke up and I knew it was time for me to get out of the desert. I was feeling pretty beat down. I needed to get rid of all the dust that covered me and everything I owned. So I got in my car and drove north all day, through northern California and into Oregon. I found a Best Western, took the greatest shower of my life and slept for about twelve hours. I felt pretty awesome the next day, so I continued driving. I gave Ali a call to let her know I was in Oregon, and she said she was there too! I headed over to 101 and started driving up the coast to meet her and her friend Rachel. We met in Lincoln City, and headed to the nearest beach:

 

 

 

There was a huuge sand dune there that we climbed.

 

So worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

We then pressed on further north and found a beach to camp on. It was some good times…

 

 

 

The next day…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someday I will live here.

 

…or here, I haven’t decided yet.

 

Coffee shop.

 

Buddafeeod

 

Stole my $2 flip flop!! A crime!

 

Cool place #456

 

A lighthouse.

 

The end.

 

After all that adventuring, I followed Ali up to Ashford, where I have been recovering (cleaning all my crap, getting my car fixed…etc.), and looking for a job in Seattle/Portland (if anyone knows of any, LET ME KNOW!!). Stay tuned for some Mt. Rainier pictures!

So let’s see…when was it…like two weeks ago almost, I left my house, went to Ann Arbor, picked up some guy I had never met (a random dude who was on a hitchhiking adventure across the country), drove 26 hours to Utah, hung out with my brother, and that’s where I left you with my last post. Well I have been through quite a bit since then. Right now I am sitting in a coffee shop in Ashford, WA, trying to sort through all these freaking pictures. I am near the entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park. It is a clear day and Mt. Rainier looks awesome. It is HUGE! Wow. I have never been to the Northwest before and I am loving it. After camping for a week in the desert for burning man I randomly met up with Ali on the Oregon Coast (which is pretty much the most beautiful place I have ever been btw), and decided it would be a good idea to…go camping again! Yay! But the pictures and stories from that are for part 2 of this most epic post. Now I know you are all waiting to hear and see things from my Burning Man adventure, so here goes:

Monday morning I woke up at 3 a.m. and got right in the car to continue on my journey westward. It was about twelve more hours to the Burning Man location. We passed through Salt Lake City as the sun rose behind us over the lake. It was a beautiful sight, but I must say, the Great Salt Lake does not have a very pleasant smell to it. In fact, it smells absolutely terrible. Like a giant field of dead fish. The air was also filled with swarms of weird bugs. My passenger remarked “Bugs, dead fish smell, desert…only the Mormons would come here and be like: ‘Paradise!’” So we pressed on as fast as we could. Next up was a drive across the Bonneville Salt Flats which was incredible. Miles and miles of straight road over white, perfectly flat ground as far as the eye could see. Crazy. It was a preview of the type of environment I was about to spend a week in. After the Salt Flats there is the boring state of Nevada. Not much to say about that except that I was really glad my car didn’t fall apart. I was in such an incredible state of anticipation by the time we reached our exit off I-80 that I noticed my hands had actually developed pretty thick callouses just from gripping the steering wheel so hard for so long. I got my last tank of fuel that would take me past Gerlach into the desert, and we headed into the unknown. By this time almost everyone on the road with us was headed to Burning Man, so things had gotten very interesting. We all drove north past Pyramid Lake in a line of biodiesel buses, RV’s, trailers, trucks, and hybrid cars packed full of interesting people, bicycles, generators, booze, and all kinds of incredibly random artful things for which I’m sure no one could give a good reason for bringing to the middle of a desert. We descended on the confused residents of Gerlach by the thousands, stocking up on gas, food, and supplies before our week long adventure. Looking north, all I could see was an enormous cloud of dust, and I knew that was where I was headed. Just a few miles north of Gerlach was a sign pointing to a bumpy, temporary gravel road which led us off the map and onto the open playa. Almost instantly we were surrounded by dust. It wasn’t long before it was nearly impossible to see even a car five feet in front of us. We were arriving with a dust storm at the worst possible time. I had heard so many stories about how you never experience anything like the weather out there, and it is true that nothing can prepare you for it. When a window is rolled down or a door is opened, nothing can stop the dust from blowing in and coating absolutely everything in the car. Soon it was coming out of the air vents, and my poor car’s engine was struggling to stay alive. As we passed through the gate, we were greeted by a topless woman in a dust mask and goggles directing traffic, which of course did not seem strange at all by that point. My traveling companion bravely got out on foot to help me find my way for about two miles to the greeter’s station at the actual entrance to the city. At this point we were told we had to stop. No one was allowed to drive in because visibility was so poor. So my passenger took his backpack (which is all he brought with him), and decided to walk the rest of the way in. I was on my own to figure the rest out. Everyone who wasn’t on foot or on a bike ended up having to stay at the greeter’s station for about three hours until things calmed down. No one let this stop the party from starting! Clothes were removed, beer was opened, bikes were brought out and the city seemed to spring up right there in line out of nowhere. Clearly dust storms are just another part of the Burning Man experience which everyone simply makes the best of. For me, it was a baptism in playa dust. After a half hour or so, an older, overweight man wearing a pink thong came up to my car and gave me a map of the city and told me how to get to my camp. I eventually left my car and wandered around with my dust mask, hat and goggles on to take in my surroundings for a while. By about 7 p.m. the wind finally started to settle down. Everyone just started yelling and running back to their cars. We were finally ready to head into the city. It is easy to find your way around, and I quickly found my way to P-Cubed Oasis at Corvair and 8:00 (this will make sense if you know how the city is laid out, which is pretty cool. Look it up). I saw the two story bar, which looked beautiful, and was nearly completed. There were just a couple of people at the camp, so I set up my tent by myself next to Lauren’s geodesic dome. The first thing I did was get a huge blister on my hand which is still healing from pounding in my rebar tent stakes. Ouch. After awkwardly finishing my tent set up, and some wandering around, I was feeling extremely overwhelmed and exhausted, so I passed out in my tent as the wind continued to pound it all night.

It is kind of hard to piece together a linear stream of events from the rest of the week…I will say that I had an amazing time. It was a very challenging experience in many ways. Through the course of each day’s wandering, I easily covered several miles on foot and on my bike. Everything was bigger and more elaborate than I could have imagined. I met more people than I would normally meet in an entire year and they were from all over the world and were all very interesting. I know I hated it when people said things like this before I went to Burning Man, but: if you really want to know what goes on there, and what it is really like, you just have to go check it out for yourself. I really hope to go again next year, so if anyone wants to join me, let me know and maybe we can set something cool up. For now I will just let my pictures tell the rest of the story. Also keep checking this blog the next few days for pictures from my more recent adventures. I have a lot of work to do still. Enjoy! (Btw, the art theme this year was “The American Dream.”)

 

 

 

 

 

Inside out piano?

 

 

 

Little Thingies.

 

Press a button…see what happens.

 

Flowers at 9:00

 

Fambly

 

Tape deck art car.

 

Nautilus.

 

Ping…

 

More art cars!

 

Duck art car!

 

Bug art car!

 

Ship art car!

 

This thing was right out of star wars…it was huge and actually could walk around. Crazy!

 

Dragon art car!

 

 

 

Yes, it breathed fire.

 

Calm dusk view of P-Cubed Oasis bar (camp I was staying at).

 

Sunset from bar.

 

View from bar.

 

Party at P-Cubed!

 

The Dept. of Spontaneous Combustion visits P-Cubed!

 

Party at Mal Mart.

 

Random camp and art car.

 

Little houses! I want one of these.

 

Solar recharging station. I thought I was gonna be pretty cool with a solar powered Ipod charger…

 

Nighttime begins.

 

Fire dancing.

 

Fire ping pong!

 

The Man! at night.

 

 

 

More fire dancing. Everyone at Burning Man loves fire a lot.

 

Night triangles.

 

Day again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The American Express.

 

Bummer from afar

 

Bummer.

 

Big tall random thing…for me to climb on!

 

Hello from below.

 

Climb an old fire truck ladder! Dangerous? Of course! Weee!

 

Approaching dust storm.

 

Tandem bike & dust.

 

The ten story steel building…yeah.

 

Huge.

 

View from inside.

 

 

 

View from the top.

 

 

 

The temple.

 

 

 

Inside the temple.

 

Inside the temple you are free to leave artifacts and write messages to people you have lost or miss. On Sunday they burn the whole thing.

 

 

 

View of path to man from temple.

 

People chilling.

 

Temple interior.

 

More stuff.

 

 

 

Please keep us together.

 

The best sunset. The end.

 

So there you have it. Those are my Burning Man pictures. I wish I could have taken my camera out more but I was really nervous because of all the dust. People say “If you don’t want something to get completely destroyed, DON’T bring it to Burning Man.” Thankfully my camera is still in working order, even though it did get pretty dusty, like everything else. Also I wish I could have captured the nights better somehow. The city at night is a completely different entity. One of my favorite things to watch at night were the trails of balloon LED’s that gently curved hundreds of feet into the clear night sky, blending in with the stars (you can see a LOT of stars out there too). Very cool. Anyways, I now have to begin work on my next post! Check back soon!