I woke up this morning and checked my site stats. Wow. Over 500 1500 hits from Boing Boing on my Flipside post, and counting. Should be a good server stress test. When I posted it, I wondered if it would prove to be as popular as Jungle Larry, or if I'd get hit with the sophmore jinx. I think my question's been answered. Thanks, Mark, M.Ace, Sebastian, and Ralf for all your recent referrals, and a big Bali Hai welcome to all my new visitors.

UPDATE: MeFi picked up the post last night and added another 1000 hits to the running total. Guess I'll find out if my ISP has an extra-bandwidth surcharge.

Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy breaking out of the seemingly endless cycle of regurgitated linkage and producing something totally new, I can't produce this kind of material on a regular basis. It's very time-consuming to scan all those pages and generate HTML to wrap it in...I also don't run across treasures like Jungle Larry and Flipside #1 every day. That being said, I still have a couple of surprises waiting in the wings.

But they'll have to wait there for a while. I'm leaving for Boulder, Colorado tomorrow on business, and I won't be back blogging at full strength until mid-February.

Hang cool, teddy bears.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I was digging around in the basement the other day, and found my copy of the first issue of Flipside Magazine, dating back to 1977 and the heady days of the birth of L.A. punk.

I have a personal history with Flipside and it's founders, so I decided to scan it and write out the saga of it's earliest days for the edification of my readers. I've tried to retell the tale with as much accuracy as I could muster, but anything that I couldn't remember or verify with X-8, I just made up. Deal.

So return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the Weirdos, the Germs, and the Runaways played the Whisky A Go-Go, and 5 corndogs from Whittier, California launched a fanzine for the ages.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Today is my daughter's 11th birthday. I gifted her with a copy of The Gashleycrumb Tinies which should complement her rather dark sense of humor nicely. To give you an example of how my darling little girl thinks, here's a snippet of a conversation we had a couple of days ago:

Emma: Christmas and Easter have icons like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, birthdays should too!

Me: That's a good idea. What would you suggest?

Emma: The Birthday Badger!

Me: The Birthday Badger?

Emma: Yeah, he comes out of his den on the night before your birthday and leaves presents underneath your bed if you've been good!

Me: But what if you haven't been good?

Emma: Then he mauls you with his razor-sharp claws!

Me: Oh my.

Happy Birthday, Emma!

Please don't hurt us.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I'm at the San Jose airport, waiting for my flight home, and testing out my laptop's new wireless card. I had an excellent time here in the Bay Area, as always.

On Thursday, I got together with an old high-school buddy of mine at Da Hukilau in San Jose's Japantown. The Hawaiian food was great and pretty authentic (brown gravy, macaroni salad, fried eggs, and SPAM!), and dose tropical drinks were plenty strong, brah!

Friday night, I drove over to Emeryville, with my friends Ron and Kim, to see a gallery exhibit coordinated by Kathryn Hill, a photographer that all three of us know from LiveJournal. Afterwards, we drove over to the nearby Trader Vic's and enjoyed some good food, drink, and conversation. We were joined by Kathryn's friends, Jill and John, also LiveJournalistas, and lovely folks to boot. We had a great table by the window, overlooking the Bay, where we could watch twilight slowly creeping over the hills and twinkly lights switching on in the growing darkness.

The food and drink at Vic's was superb, as always. I forwent my usual Mai Tai, and had a couple of Navy Grogs instead. I really like the rock-candy swizzle sticks they put in them that let you adjust the sweetness to your liking.

The high temps at home are right around zero degrees today...it's 60 degrees and sunny here. [sigh]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I had a really nice day hanging out with my pal M. We ate breakfast at the Original Pancake House, then spent some time browsing around a local orchid show. I think orchids are truly fascinating flowers; unique, beautiful, and downright bizarre. I'd love to cultivate them at home, but I don't think I could provide enough sun and humidity for them to thrive.

Afterwards, we drove into downtown San Francisco. We had originally planned to visit the SFMOMA, but since the rain had stopped and the sun was shining, we decided to go walkies for a few hours wandering through the antique shops in Chinatown, then had a little Dim Sum for lunch. Later, we found a Russian bakery in the Richmond district where I bought a couple of poppyseed sweet rolls to eat for breakfast tomorrow.

We ended the day with a leisurely dinner at Katia's, where we enjoyed delicious Russian food served by a less-than satisfactory waiter. I had traditional pel'meni, pork dumplings in a chicken broth, and M had blinis filled with sour cream, smoked salmon, and salmon roe. For dessert, she had a beautifully light and airy Napoleon and I devoured a blinchiki filled with a sweet cheese that was absolutely superb.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm off to rainy California again, this time for business (mostly), so don't expect too much linky goodness around here in the interim.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 2:25 PM | Permalink

Aloha. I have returned from not-so-sunny California where, despite the pouring rain, gale-force winds, and a relatively wimpy tornado or two, we had an absolutely tiki-riffic time.

Highlights of the trip included Christmas dinner on the Queen Mary, dining at the fabulous Bali Hai Restaurant, sipping Bahooka Bowls with those lovable kids from Los Feliz, Eddie and Lili, browsing through Oceanic Arts, and scoring a couple of fantastic faux-polynesian tschotkes at a nearby antique mall, along with some very cool Mexican folk art on Olvera Street.

Photos (such as they are) can be seen here. I hope to resume regular blogging soon, work permitting.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)