Enter the Dark Ages. (Fight the Power)

The Experiment:

To eliminate all usage of power at the Estate as a means to encourage and invigorate a stalling environmental movement.

*EDITORS NOTE: THIS EXPERIMENT IN NO WAY HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH PG&E CUTTING OFF OUR POWER AS A MEANS OF LEVERAGE OVER AN ONGOING DISPUTE OVER UNFAIR BILLING PRACTICES. WE ARE NOT IN ANY WAY TELLING THE LOCAL ELECTRIC UTILITY TO GO FUCK THEMSELVES.

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In our modern society there has grown an increased reliance on technology and with it has come a growth of power usage. (See graph 1-1 below)

As you can see, this information was derived from a well-sourced fountain of knowledge and information. (A.K.A. My brain)

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As ardent advocates for returning to a pre-electrification era we strive to draw focus to the absurd energy abuses that are taking place TODAY.

To celebrate the start of this experiment we threw a "Blackout Party @ The Estate". The concept is quite simple and fun if you wish to implement this eco-conscious party theme.

• STEP 00: Invite everyone you know to your house. Don't forget to add "Bring Your Own Flashlight" to the invite. (It is important to note that the host is encouraged to not use abbrev. B.Y.O.F. due to the ambiguity of the "F")
• STEP 01: Cut off the power in your house.
• STEP 02: Place candles through-out your house.
• STEP 02a: MAKE SURE THE CANDLES ARE APPROVED AND CERTIFIED DRUNK-PROOF BY OSHA.
• STEP 03: Light Candles.
• STEP 04: Get drunk.

*THE ESTATE TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY FIRES OR OTHER "ACCIDENTS" (i.e. UNINTENDED PREGNANCIES, POORLY LIT BATHROOMS, ETC.) / THE ESTATE HOWEVER WILL TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR HAVING A BITCHING ASS TIME.

In the last 3 days since the start of the experiment we have successfully:

• Thrown a kick ass "Black-Out party".
• Had an awesome BBQ with grilled chicken, and hot links.
• Cooked the breakfast of the Gods (16 Hashbrowns, 25 Breakfast Sausages, and 2 Pepper Jack stuffed Sausages)
• Gave some random homeless dude that asked me for money 14 Hashbrowns, 23 Breakfast Sausages, and 2 Pepper Jack stuffed Sausages.

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This latest chapter in the Adventures @ The Estate will be updated weekly if not more.

Thank you for stopping by.

• Below you will find an example invite you can use for throwing your own BlackOut Party, and pictures from the BlackOut party.

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BlackOut Party Invite:

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BlackOut Party @ The Estate:

(Picture of the Dodge Charger filled with beer we parked in the garage for the event.)

(The skill of these beer-pong players is immense, rumor has it they trained with the Tibetan monks for several days.)

(This may be borderline NSFW, but a little skin never hurt anyone.)

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ALSO STAY TUNED FOR CUSTOM-DESIGNED ECO-CONSCIOUS

"FIGHT THE POWER" T-SHIRTS!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG! OMG! OMG! p_O

Too much is happening all at once!!! I don't know what to do and I'm trying to document it all!! ACK!!! Okay truthfully, I've been procrastinating a teeny bit. BUT Documentation has been occurring.

Here's a teaser. Once the move occurs, I'll be setting out on planning the backyard. It's going to involve a bamboo forest, a fire pit, and an outdoor dojo (Training area) that blends seamlessly into the surroundings and creates a peaceful zen like backyard to compliment the extremely calming interior.

Now set your imaginations to overdrive and drool over the results!

:D

Artifacts of Note V

The last couple of weeks has been an intense frenzy of renovation work involving tiles, paints, and loads of garbage. I would love to update everyone on the progress of the Estate, but alas it will have to wait for another day.

For now, satiate your hunger with: ARTIFACTS OF NOTE V!!!!

Artifact of Note #08042010-001

What you see before you is the remnant of a culture of humans that believed that life cannot be dictated by the purpose of one's own will, but should be held to the whim of random dice throws. This artifact is known as a D10 it's rarity is in between the very common D20 and the most absurd D2. It is interesting to note that the reason for the civilizations destruction was not the pure randomness of events, but the frenzied pace at which it's leading scientists attempted to recreate the progenitors of their world the D0 and the D1. (This is assumed to have been an impossible quest)

Artifact of Note #08052010-001

While cleaning up the backyard I stumbled upon this freshly baked piece of pizza goodness. It was clear to me that it was obviously not an extremely old discarded piece of food trash because it was free of ants and dirt. What this told me was that Little Caesar's makes quality food.

Artifact of Note #08082010-001

Look! A miniature Halloween pumpkin containing a fun-size white chocolate crunch and some plain m&m's. Probably two of the most boring and un-fun candies on the market. I would've done a blog about us eating the candies, but before I had a chance to pull out the camera Reardon quickly consumed all of it... pumpkin and all. Depression quickly set in, until!

Artifact of Note #08082010-002

We discovered an completely discarded un-opened non-ancient box of instant oatmeal. 55 packets of fiber-filled poop-cleaning goodness!

Artifact of Note #08082010-003

"Own a Gun & Stay Out of Jail" This book should have only one page and on that page it should say, "Don't shoot anyone."

Artifact of Note #08082010-004

What's this do??

When we first discovered this peculiar object, I had assumed it to be some kind of fashionable drink coaster, but upon further inspection by our brightest minds it was revealed to be some sort of primitive device for storing data magnetically. We expected to uncover more information about the prior inhabitants of the area, but for some reason there was no data present. Hrm.

Artifact of Note #08082010-005

A discarded plush bear, virtually new. The saddest thing in the entire world and also the plot for Pixar's next film.

Artifact of Note #08082010-006

This demonic object seems to possibly be a stuffed/robotic representation of a domesticated species similar to your more common house cat. This particular find also looks to operate on electrical power of some sort. We hope to resupply it with power and see if it's AI chips still function.

Artifact of Note #08082010-007

ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING!?!?? ANIMANIACS SOUNDTRACK? You can bet this will be playing on constant loop for the duration of our time at the Estate. That is if we can find a CD player.

Artifact of Note #08082010-008

Green Day's Insomniac album. A good album and a wonderful find.


Here's a peek at the CD itself.

Artifact of Note #08082010-009

Who needs house paint, we got fat sticks of colored chalk!

Artifact of Note #08082010-010

Notice the peculiar artwork on this toy, it's an ant hiding behind a leaf. Think about that... That ant is probably scared for it's life. If you pelted it with a water balloon it would probably die. This product condones and endorses insecticide. The brainwashing propaganda begins at birth, remember that.

Artifact of Note #08082010-011

We are as of yet unsure as to what this device was used for. We believe it to be similar to the Antikythera mechanism, but lame.


Annnd... that's a wrap! Stay tuned for later this week when we post on the night the wall came down.

Unexpected events may lead to a paradigm shift of massive proportions.

Something happened the other day that has changed my entire life forever. I can't say what it is at the moment, but I'm sure the information will get out there eventually. I will try my best to update this blog at least weekly, but with this new turn of events it is difficult.

I'm sorry to everyone for being so cryptic, but I am trying show respect and love.

I'm planning a nice hefty Artifact of Note update because Reardon and I found some amazing finds a few days prior.

Wish me luck as I venture into the unknown and uncharted.

-Stevo

Super-Massive update spectacular!!! Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Estate. [PART II]

Sooo... where was I? Oh right...

4 Days ago, I arrived at the Estate to find this:

It all seemed to happen over night. Like some kind of renovation Santa passed over the Estate and removed all the unsightly old crap that was just getting in the way.

It seems we have a mystery on our..

WAIT!? p_O Did you see that!?

PANEL #5

OMG... something needs to be done about this. This is obviously a new scientifically engineered immigrant capable of super human feats of strength and speed.

(NOTE: Upon further investigative research, I have uncovered that this mysterious person is from Guatemala not Mexico. So there is obviously no need to be concerned about his legal status...)

There wasn't anything for me to do.. We had planned to start demolition the following Wednesday, and most of the work had already been accomplished.

I was left without a job to do.

But the thought had already occurred to me that once the demolition was complete we would need to quickly move into the renovation stage if we were to make our August 30th deadline.

So it was on to tiles!


After much searching through the sacred Halls of Home Depot we made our final selection and brought some samples home.




At least we thought it was our final selection. The great Lord of this land decided that our choices were going to mean that we were going to paint the entire Estate in shades of Grey. We even made it clear that it was not our intent to do so, but he refused to believe us and demanded we chose a different selection of tile...

This was of course the following day, after we had started to move into the next phase of the renovation process.

Just to skip past all the boring aspects of this story... we eventually settled on a more contemporary (AKA Boring) tile selection. One that old people would enjoy. Wonderful.

The entertaining part of this is that after we finally settled on the tile selection, drove all the way to Oakland to a Chinese Cabinet and Granite warehouse and decided on the counter tops and cabinets. The boss decided that he felt bad and decided maybe we should go back to the original tile selection. No offense meant to my parents, but they have a very VERY hard time making decisions when it comes to interior design. They spent almost 3 months renovating the downstairs of their house because they couldn't decide on the countertops/paint/cabinets/flooring and we don't have 3 months.

Anyways... here is the final selection. (I can say this with confidence because we're laying the bathroom tile tomorrow 8/5):

Ignore the paint choices, but you can also see the carpet we're ordering as well.


As far as our official demolition start date of August 4th which coincided with the delivery of the dumpster of the Gods.


Imagine Apollo pulling this son of a bitch across the sky.

I had something amazing planned for everyone that reads this on Thursday as well. It was a well planned out and highly anticipated event for myself and Sir Christopher Lemley.

But as most of my plans for the week, the very awesome and hard working man from Guatemala beat us too it.

I had planned to take pictures of the entire demolition of the post-apocalyptic-esque hot tub as performed by Sir Chris, but since it was almost completely finished when we arrived I can only provide you a hi-tech CG rendering of what the hot tub looked like before it's demise.



There was thankfully a section left to be demolished, and Chris quickly set to work with his fully authentic vault-tec saws-all.




As we lifted the remnants of the hot tub to get a closer look at the critters crawling about, we discovered the hidden horror of a hatchway leading to a flood infected Covenant ship.

So what did we do?

Donned our Spartan armor and grabbed our trusty assault rifles and a few plasma grenades and dove in to the belly of the beast. It wasn't a day at the beach let me tell you, but for that holographic babe Cortana we'd do anything. Even if it was a one-way ticket.

After saving the entire planet from a flood invasion, we cemented in the hatch.

... and as we stood surrounded by the thousands upon thousands of flood infected corpses an uncomfortable silence surrounded us.

There was one thing left for us to do....




THE END.



The home of a future fire-pit... this place is going to be awesome.

Super-Massive update spectacular!!! Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Estate. [PART I]

With the start of August came a torrent of spur of the moment decisions that propelled us from our August 4th demolition start date and left us with nothing to demolish today when the God of all dumpsters is delivered to the Estate.

This particular post has the dual purpose of attempting to catch everyone up with the events of the last week as well as serve as a grand excuse for my severe procrastination in updating this "Near-Daily Blog".

But first things first... The coolest find in all of time. Serious.

(WARNING: The following image may cause blindness by awesome.)

Artifact of Note #07302010-001

Be Jealous... be VERY jealous.

In the event that your mind cannot process the pure awesome that this find is, or if you do not wish to risk permanent retinal damage; I will plainly state what everyone else has just torn out their eyeballs over.

Star Wars Candy Molds.

Which I venture to say might be more awesome then this:

I repeat, MIGHT be... I can't decide if getting fat off Darth Chocolates is better then our personal LORD and savior reminding us that having the hots for teacher is BAD. Plus, can you imagine using his forehead to erase the clothing off of the Victoria Secret models in the magazines?

But I digress...

Approximately 7 days ago I finished disassembling the final corner desk in the front room and sold it to Sir David Andrew of Sandwichshire so that his room chi could flow better.


Which I would proudly have to say is a resounding success thank you very much!

I also finally moved the Super-Massive non-flat screen TV from it's resting place. I was afraid of the things I might find hiding underneath, but all in all it was pretty much just your typical trash.


You know... Crayon Art, Junk Mail, Bottle Caps, Fingers, etc...

I would show you after pictures of the front room and the living room with the TV removed but the changes that have occurred over the last 7 days have been much more drastic.

oooh, suspense! p_O

(Well okay, for our generation of instant gratification.... voila!)




Did you just crap your pants?

Good... because that's totally the house across the street.

It just occurred to me how late it is, so sadly... I must stop writing.

I fully intend to continue this update tomorrow.

Until then, here's a teaser!

Tomorrow.. PART II !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Artifacts of Note IV and a progress report from from the front lines.

There have been plenty of discoveries over the past week, as well as plenty of changes as we quickly approach the start of the renovation phase.

Artifact of Note #07202010-003

If you look at the artifact number you'll realize this is actually an old discovery that I failed to put up... Let me tell you this thing is frightening when worn, and I'm glad it doesn't work anything like the mask from "The Mask". *shutters* I don't even want to imagine...

Artifact of Note #07202010-004

Another "un-registered" artifact. If anyone has any idea what the hell this is please tell me. Also it somehow ended up in the middle of the floor of the front bedroom. I shuddered at the thought of items randomly appearing in different rooms and decided if that happens, I'm saving us the trouble and burning the place down to the ground and exhuming the bodies under the foundation.

Artifact of Note #07252010-001

Read the label carefully. Notice that is says Apple Juice... I couldn't find a date on the container anywhere, but the fact that the Apple Juice is no longer see-thru says a lot.


"Time to get drunk?" I lit the containers from behind to show how dark the juice has become.

Sir Christopher Raymond of Espartonia came to provide his services and discovered that the mirrored squares on the Northeast wall were attached not by glue, but by the double sided puffy tape!

Artifact of Note #07262010-001



The thought that at any moment more tiles could come crumbling down basically insured I would return in the evening to remove the remaining tiles on the Northeast wall.


I lacked proper eye-protection so I improvised and donned a pair of fancy shades and set to work breaking the reflective glass squares (Reflective glass doesn't come with the mandatory 7 years bad luck)

Shortly after I had begun work, Sir Christopher Lemley arrived to provide assistance. He too lacked proper eye protection, and lacking more conventional solutions... we improvised.



No this isn't weird at all. Also, notice the clear packing tape over the eyes.


Here are a few more pics of the Deconstruction of the Reflective Northeast wall:





A brief inspired homage to Pac-man.

We left the Pac-man ghost up for a bit while we took a break and disassembled one of the desks in the front room.


I would have taken pictures of the crazy-stupid angles we had to position the bottom half of the desk to get it out and into the garage, but I was too busy cursing and wishing that we could turn off gravity temporarily.

Eventually everyone except Janelle and I left the Estate and I quickly dispatched of the remaining tiles to finish our goal.


Here's a few more artifacts that were discovered during the week:

Artifact of Note #07282010-001

What's this? A primitive cellphone device?


Craziness! This thing was one of the first/early pager-pager txt'ing devices!!
Check out the full QWERTY keypad!

Artifact of Note #07282010-002

A Music CD entitled, "Killer Cuts" produced by Nintendo. I can only assume that it is a soundtrack for the game, "Killer Instinct".


The copyright is from 1995.. you know... back when they still made CDs.


With song titles such as, "The Way U Move" and "Yo! Check This Out!" You can tell this album was at the top of the billboard charts. No joke.
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There has been huge events unfolding as we approach the start of our renovation phase. The next week should be filled with demolition work, but a more detailed update should be following this post in a day or two.

I leave you with this:


...May you never sleep again.