Bunny tsunami

In Old Sacramento...

... there are now two tattoo parlors facing each other on 2nd Street!  

This big box...

...has ONE piano key in it, with an ivory repair done by the queen of keytops, Ms. Yvonne Ashmore of Grass Valley. 

Sock clown

When I close my eyes I still see it. Staring at me.

A love letter to Espresso Metro

Little horror movie

Playing around in the black light corner at Evangeline's.

Village Hats

At Village Hat Shop I bought a top hat for the Moulin Rouge themed corporate party. They also sell this menorah hat.

Fairly horrifying piece of sheet music

That's Eddie Cantor in blackface.

A great set of figurines

Union hall turned gallery

The Vox gallery, which used to be in an office building that was set to be torn down, found an old union hall that is set to be torn down in 18 months. It has a big room with a nice little stage and an upstairs with lots of offices, including this glass window where union members must have come to pick up their checks and pay their dues. 

Mail-order piano

My customer bought this piano from a rebuilder in Chicago sight unseen. Not a bad instrument!

Movie poster at Vox Gallery

Another reason California is paradise on Earth

These people replaced their front lawn with a miniature golf-style putting green.

Some nice street art

...on an honor box near Jack's Urban Eats.

A very popular painting

On This American Life today, I heard about Alex Melamid and Vitaly Komar,who took a series of polls to find out what people liked in a painting. The favorite subject was landscape, and the favorite color blue. Above the piano at my second tuning was this lovely blue landscape. 

You can see their examples of the "Most and Least Wanted Paintings" for various countries around the world here.

We don't have snow, but...

...winter in Sacramento sometimes produces "ice puddles" like this one.

A rare piano tuning cartoon in the New Yorker

Click here.

Some restaurants assume that you know the teapot is hot

But not this one.

Filmspotting

My favorite podcast is Filmspotting, a film review show from Chicago Public Radio. On this week's show they ended by reading an email I wrote them!

You can hear the excerpt here:

Electronic cigarettes

This seems to be real. http://icig.net/

Formerly known as Mostly Mozart

On a recording studio wall

Photo album, trip to see Beach Blanket Babylon

2008-12-28 Beach Blanket Babylon

The end of Broadway Hardware

One of Sacramento's oldest hardware stores just went out of business. Read about it here. 

A lovely art car...

...outside Old Ironsides for Jerry Perry's birthday show.

Christmas Town on 51st St.

We visited 51st and T Streets, which always have a great Christmas display. It being the day after Christmas, some of the lights were turned off... but it was quite good anyway.

A Christmas picture from Chris Harvey

Christmas Day at Espresso Metro

“My dog loves to dress up!”

Sure he does.

Three monkeys

This is the last Foodstuffs illustration of the year — about a restaurant that just closed called Three Monkeys. 

Holographic postcard

My Prius reached 50,000 miles today

Jennifer's present

Jennifer got me this gun that shoots tiny rubber chickens! I hung the package on the wall over a picture of St. Chicken Head!

Rachel's present

Rachel got me a copy of David Boring by the great cartoonist Daniel Clowes, plus some kitschy postcards like this one.

The base of a streetlight...

...in downtown Sacramento.

Dr. Chocolate

Now that he finally has his Ph.D., he can get a teaching job.

What should you read in the bathroom?

Future people

A place for visitors from the future to park their hovercars and rocket packs.

Robin's birthday party at Espresso Metro

Joan made the almond coffee cake. When Robin came in, the whole place sang "Happy Birthday" accompanied by the keyboard.

A person with a rich, full life...

...wrote this on the piano at JB's Lounge. By the way, Dan, if you are reading this, the piano is really out of tune and has a missing string at D#6. 

Is there really a High School Musical magic 8-ball?

All signs point to yes! I was wrapping presents today at Christmas Promise, an organization that provides presents to poor families. The daughter of this family must really like High School Musical, because she is getting the 8-ball, a poster, beauty products, and a deck of cards, all with the HTM theme. 

A British panto

This is the set for the show we saw tonight — Snow White, a British Panto. Rachel's former second-grade teacher and a former classmate were both outstanding in it. Overall, a loose and funny show. 

Bottom feeder

This fish, in a customer's aquarium, swallows gravel and then discharges it through its gills.

The naked burglar strikes again?

A cold night for naked burgling

A few nights ago, at 11 pm, the doorbell rang. I went to see who it was but didn't see anyone. About ten minutes later, I heard a lot of noise around the garbage cans in the side yard. I went to the laundry room and saw a hairy arm sticking through the pet door (above). I yelled, "What are you doing?! Get the f___ out of here or I'm calling the police!" Jennifer did call the police. Within ten minutes, a helicopter and a squad car arrived, four officers came in and we felt a lot better. Later, we learned that they caught the would-be burglar just a few doors down. He was completely naked, having left all his clothes in our backyard.

Best job listing ever

If you are half of a dueling piano duo, click here.

Rachel added for scale

A film by David Garfield.

David showed me this film years ago while I was studying film scoring, and unsolicited, I sent him a score for it. Finally he has posted it to YouTube, with my score.

Ask the expert

While I was watching the young man make my sandwiches at Togo's, I asked him what his favorite sandwich was. "Bacon," he said. "Bacon sandwich?" I asked. "No. Just bacon, wrapped in cheese."

I'm not sure why, but...

...I always spend my payday advance on cigarettes.

Meet me at the corner of Resentful and Lazy

This piano had mice in it

It's from a rural elementary school surrounded by farmland. There's what looks like straw stuffed under the keys and bits of straw are poking up through the mortises. It still plays, though!

Christmas crackers

My Welsh friend Michael introduced me to the British tradition of Christmas Crackers. From the Tom Smith Christmas Cracker site:

In its simplest form, a cracker is a small cardboard tube covered in a brightly colored twist of paper. When the cracker is pulled by two people, each holding one end of the twisted paper covered tube, the friction creates a small explosive 'pop'. This 'pop' is produced by a narrow strip of chemically impregnated paper. The cracker tears apart and out of the cardboard tube tumbles a bright paper hat, a small gift, a balloon and a motto or joke. It is a running joke that all the jokes and mottos in crackers are unfunny and unmemorable. Similarly, in most standard commercial products, the "gift" is equally awful, although wealthier individuals—notably, the royal family—may use custom crackers with more expensive rewards.

Due to budget cuts...

...the gospel choir and the student government have been combined. 

In the dorm

I was working on this piano action in a student lounge at UC Davis.

New expression

We saw Zach and Miri Make a Porno on Friday night. Not a great movie (especially the second half), but introduced me to a nice new idiom: "putting it out on Front Street" (being candid). Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks were both very fine.