Ninja Motorhome |dot| com » The captains table

Makers

Henchbot — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:29:28 +0000

There is a dense fog on Alki today, same one that’s been here all week, typically burning off around noon. Its nice for many reasons, one of the best though is waking up to foghorns blasting through the murk.
Xbox Live has been being abused since 6am, Red Dead Redemption getting chieved out, and now filthy assistant is ~~bloodily~~ tidily wrapping up her 3rd total game win (that I know of) on Fable 2. Breakfast is through, 2nd pot of coffee is on and Im manning the wheel at Ninja. Its a damn fine morning.
Im trolling Kickstarter this morning and wondering how many of you here make things. I know my good friends the Baker girls make clothes and arts and I know other crews who make boards and woodcrafts and of course there are the honey peddlers who adorn their wares with all sorts of handmade goodies. What would/do you make? What am I making now?
Im available at either henchbot@ninjamotorhome.com or rage_x@hotmail.com.
What is your battle cry? Its time to MAKE! I want to know what your doing and if I can, help you do it more.

(Books and Magazines are my favorite….)

TruckerBangin!

Henchbot — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:22:37 +0000

This is NinjaMotorhome dot com.
Word of the week: TruckerBangin.
Jam of the week: Mike Jones
Get after it!

The Hood Internet – La Femme D’Monsieur Jones (Air x Mike Jones) by hoodinternet

Pirates, motorhomes and lemonade

Henchbot — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 06:46:49 +0000

I just spent 45 minutes at Facebook reading and responding to birthday wishes. I think I got every one of them in reply, at least that was my intent. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes, thoughts and yes, facebook pokes.
Its growing late on a Saturday night, back in the warm, digital embrace of the web as I suck down vodka lemonades’ to stave off this oppressive heat. Im reading up on Khat tonight, not because I managed to get some for my birthday……no that would never happen. Im just reading about it because……well…..the pirates in Somalia get all tuned up on it before they go hijack the living shit out of tankers off the Puntland Coast…something Ive spoken about many times here on Ninja. Naturally I have questions about it: why do pirates like it, what is it like, etc etc. Turns out on the Wiki link above, it is specifically banned in Missouri (amongst other grave condemnations) Why is that I ask myself, What does Missouri have against Khat?
Im just curious is all. Its nothing really, just a chalky, bitter, high seas skullduggery novelty that you better be ready to chase with booze…….at least that what I imagine it to be. Wikipedia says it will get you really jacked, and wiki is user based…..so that must be true, but again….I’m just a reader, an innocent bystander with a passionate interest in the cultures of other communities and countries, particularly pirates.

There’s been alot going on in the beeyard the past two weeks, something I will talk about over on Shipwreck later in the weekend, likely Sunday. Stay tuned over there for that. Those bees have been raising all sorts of hell, methinks they’ve been chewing that devil weed: khat.

The setlist for the week includes another wide array of artists, spanning genres with acts such as Arcade Fire and Dierks Bentley, Ive got a mixtape coming from 8tracks, I will release that any day now. Its an odd collection of sound for sure and likely only enjoyable to myself.

Its been one hell of a week, living all sorts of ways in all sorts of places amongst all sorts of people. Im always interested in peoples reaction to the motorhome, you can never predict what its going to be once people actually realize that what they are seeing in front of them, or driving by them is real. It never fails as I hoist the colors on her once we’ve dropped anchor, someone always comes up and says something like: “Christ on a crutch what in hell is that!” I laugh every time, a big hearty laugh as I explain whats’ obviously a 20 foot flagpole with a jolly roger at the top of the mast. This week we met a guy who couldn’t believe my rig was even real, I invited him and his kids up to the motorhome lot at Stevens Pass next Winter to live the dream with us and he couldn’t believe we did that even. He was a really nice guy who wanted to connect with his kids more, especially his son who was getting older and drifting away. He left us that night with all sorts of gifts and promised he would see us this Winter up there. I love how motorhomes bring people together, moreso when tied in with something that really, most people wont even consider doing: Winter Camping. I am a Winter man, hands down. I love being in the harshest yet gloriest of Seasons in my wheeled cabin of doom. Winter brings out the best in people, its when you have to work to stay alive, when every decision makes an absolute difference. I tell you what: there’s no vodka lemonades on a laaaazy Saturday night in ……wait a second: Yes there are. Lots of them!!!!

Im turning this thing off before I ramble even more about Winter, pirate drugs and vodka lemonade. Ive clearly lost my mind.
Heres’ Arcade Fire from the new album. Goodnight friends.
Arcade Fire – Ready To Start by TheClink

Soto

Henchbot — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:44:03 +0000

Pulling Jeff Soto from the RSS lineup doesnt mean I dont like him. Check out his new exhibit either at the jump, or click through the pic.

the rip line

Henchbot — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:52:23 +0000

picking lines

Ninja Merch

Henchbot — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:38:25 +0000

Ive been playing with shopping carts on GoDaddy lately, with thoughts of honey, assembled/ready to use beehives, snowboards, my really horrible homemade art, and general miscellany. I wonder what I can sell online? Probably anything I want. My super intense sharpie renditions of different backpacking trips I have taken may look childish and silly, but will easily earn topdollar. The most obvious place to start as a peddler/pusher is with a cofee mug that doubles as the late night vodka berth so here is what is going to happen: Im looking to make hangover mugs, big sturdy ninja motorhome mugs. Each hangover mug can be custom outfitted to your needs, for example one would say Skipper, one would say First Mate for that special lady and of course one could say….oh I donno….Woodbin or Deptuy Mayor….the list can go on forever. Most of you pirates are going to be reading this from Facebook so ping me there or leave a comment here if you have something you want your personal hangover mug to reflect. Ninja Motorhome Hangover Mugs! Coming soon!!

Tuesday noise

Henchbot — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:26:56 +0000

Putting the next-to-final tweaks right now on Shipwreck Honey dot com for release into the Wild sometime later this week.
I also found a bunch of random images on my camera, so Flickr will get dusted off again soon as those get uploaded.
In the meantime here are Grand National with Talk Amongst Yourselves, a fine tune.

untitled rant

Henchbot — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 06:15:19 +0000

Its Saturday 11pm. Today has been my absolute hellday, surely marking the imminent landing of my birthday, in less than 10 days. I hate my birthday, I hate days like today…… even though i took refuge in my beeyard and listened to the Ramones and Screeching Weasel all day, kinda like the old days. I always am reminded of the old Bad Religon tour on days like this, it was the “I was 22 yesterday” Tour. I wish I was 22 yesterday, instead im 12 years more than that in just over a week. I have 50 killer weeks out of each year and 2 really gnarly ones; historically those two happen right before my birthday, JUST.LIKE.TODAY!
Why doesnt it snow in July in Washington?
Heres todays jam, well…..one of em anyways.

.
I hate my godamned birthday. Kill it please? Smite it down? Search, infiltrate, destroy.

Notes from the Desk

Henchbot — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:00:55 +0000

I thought I would drop in and spend a few minutes in between gigs, its been awhile since I did this. Project Shipwreck has developed a solid set of legs under it, both Hives are in fine health. Last week I re-queened the Hive with lesser activity, the original Queen wasn’t building the brood stores up enough so I replaced her. The process is as you would imagine, find her in the Hive, remove her and replace her with a new Queen. Watch closely for a few days, determine the new Queen has been accepted into the Hive, then look forward to productivity.

Ive stopped feeding both Hives but the rain hasn’t been helping them gather pollen and nectar so I’m keeping a close eye on what they are storing right now. If the weather turns to consistent total crud I put out some feed to carry them through the bad times; the Spring has been extraordinarily wet, really bad for bugs who rely on pollination but Ive taken extra care to ensure health and welfare for my girls. I heard about a guy who interviewed with a local news outfit and he lost all his bees to what he called: “a bad wet Spring”. I wondered why he didn’t feed them. If you take care of your things to the best of your ability, (in this case ability defined by time and dedication) they will last.
I went to the local bee club meeting this week, I’m still unsure of my place in this community, it will be a niche group for sure. Maybe a niche within a niche, from what Ive seen so far I’m not remotely close to what Im determining is the “local beekeeper”. Takes a village, right? To be specific I am not overly interested in delving too deeply into the local scene, but with the big picture in mind, its a necessary thing. Its tough for me to be in a room full of hippies and keep my mouth shut so I use twitter to poke and beat. Ultimately this will be a costly mistake for me to continue so I have to stop it, now. This will be yet another great lesson from the bees for me, an exercise in self control. Hippies are humans too, kind’ve. Right? Mostly?

Today Gen. McChrystal meets with the President about his disaster of a move in Rolling Stone, I’m eager for the results of that meeting, I hope the President slaps the General around then ships him right back out to do his job. In this great Age of ~~Idiocy~~Emotion and Feelings, I’m ready to see some grit, some honor and tenacity. The Gen. made himself out to be a prick sure, but its time more than ever to hold his nose to the grindstone and make him see the job through. Replacing him will do nothing more than sideline progress in the war as a new General gets up to speed; think of the total ownership the President will have of his newly humbled General, cut down, beaten and returned to Service. Consider the likes of Beck and Limbaugh: what sort of frenetic social gyre will they happily build from such a dismissal? The tea party and its reckless architects would have a heyday with this, what better way to shut them down before they even gather steam.
The (BP) mess in the Gulf is so utterly depressing to see, and nothing is changing, improving in real time or projected time(line). Bi-Partinaship is not what we hired the President for, our country is in utter disgrace by our own hand, its time for a showing of strength, wisdom and fortitude. Accountability is a word that describes our needs well because deep inside that word sits resolve, intelligence and relentless determination. We are in a deep dark hole still, perhaps keeping a disgraced General in Service to his Country would mark a social turnaround, force us to collectively take a closer look at the legacy we are destroying before we even begin our God given right to build.

Its after midnight, this will auto post sometime around 8am Wednesday, good night.

Notes: Ignite

Henchbot — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:13:58 +0000

Last night was my first Ignite event ever, I went with pretty high hopes which were for their part, met then redefined. Sometime last year I started thinking about what it means to live in this culture so largely defined by 140 characters or less; something I call High Frequency blogging. Everything is done in fractions of a moment and even that is cumbersome, unwieldly. I reckon this all started back in the 90′s with what was then cultural cutting edge: speed dating; now a clumsy lumbering dinosaur on the tech-waste landscape. We sort of look at it and think my god, is it hungry? it looks so….mostly dead.
Last nights’ event startled me inasmuch that 5 minutes is the new keynote, Ignite has created the Mexican Standoff of conferences, if your not done in 5 minutes you will get gunned down. Watching speakers time thier speaking bits with the 15 second slide quota was interesting, especially if they spoke faster than thier slide presented. There is no room allowed for absorption, digestion….we simply arent given the time to chew through the fat. I simply wasnt given the time.
Maybe everyone else there got it and Im just getting old; I walked in the room with one of my moleskines, ready to take web adresses, @’s and anything else I could jot down mid-speech but guess what: I was the only one; I was absolutely fucking archaic with my…..paper and writing tool? I knew there wouldnt be time to take notes of any consequence, but I dont need notes of consequence, I need my own encrusted coding in my own encrusted pages for later review and consideration.
Last night was the very beating heart of the high frequency beast. I didnt walk out of the arena, sold on the idea, I did walk out of the arena at halftime however. The format is good, and clearly alot of people …in this case 500 plus, enjoy the process but for me, it wasnt the right fit, the right moment. There is something vastly engaging about paper, tools and hand-craft. I take literal translation and sheer joy out of the phrase, (in this year 2010…so very obviously the future we dreamed of as children) “dumbing it down”. Anymore dumbing down means the feel of paper against your hand, the stain of ink against the back of your palm and the strains of time, in the case of our now future: that strain can be defined as anything lasting over an hour or depending on your arena: 5 minutes.

If your interested in digging, here is the tag: #is10