Brad profile picture

Brad

psychoratdog

About Me

Having blown my rotator cuff and following three subsequent surgeries, I have had to hang up my tool belt and end my career as a carpenter. I am currently planning on returning to school with the goal of achieving my Master's and teacher certification. Let's face it, getting summers off to head up North is a big perk. Seriously, I enjoy and respect knowledge and the power it can give to people if they reach out to grasp it. Plus, stupid people annoy me.

I'm currently highly involved in my main hobby of embarassing my teenage daughters at every possible moment by being involved in their lives with various activities such as Thurston High School Drama and the Plymouth Fife and Drum Corps. Check out my flickr pics.

don't they look like they deserve to be annoyed?

My Interests


good music, good movies, good food, good beer
having a good life
Support your local music and artists!
My Bookmarks

I'd like to meet:

Many of the people I'd like to meet are dead. Therefore, it would require tremendous brainpower devoted to building a time travel device.....instead, I'll just sip some more coffee and hope someone walks by. It probably won't be Kafka unless all the zombie flicks turn out to be as prescient as I believed them to be upon viewing.

Music:

wide and eclectic selection of perennial favorites and listening experiences ranging from Beethoven's Ode to Joy to Cypress Hill.
Faves include and are not limited to:
The Church
Tragically Hip
Yo La Tengo
Sonic Youth
Love & Rockets
Bowie
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Travis
Nick Drake
Lenny Kravitz
The Clash
Flaming Lips
Johnny Cash
Wilco
Radiohead
They Might Be Giants
Polyphonic Spree
Run-DMC
Snow Patrol
Iggy & the Stooges
I can go on but I won't

Movies:

Put a zombie in a film and I will watch it. Whether or not I will like it is another story. The line, "Necrotic re-animated flesh as a metaphor for (fill in the blank)....." in a film review is guaranteed to get me to watch it.

Any film by Danny Boyle is a must see. If you don't believe that then see anything he has made and you will change your mind. I'm also a fan of Jim Jarmusch, Guy Ritchie, Terry Gilliam, the Coen Bros. and Tim Burton.

top films in no particular order include and are not limited to:

    Blade Runner Dead Man Memento 28 Days Later Big Fish Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead Reservoir Dogs The Seven Samurai Nightmare Before Christmas The Big Lebowski
Again, I can go on and on.....but I won't

Books:

is this enough reading for the next three months? Not shown are the additional 10-20 sources needed for researching various papers.

My Blog

The Pajama Game

It may not be Shakespeare, heck, it barely qualifies as drama, however, I am pleased to announce the performance of "The Pajama Game" by the South Redford Thurston High School Drama Club.   ...
Posted by Brad on Thu, 03 May 2007 06:59:00 PST

GRE

I took the GRE today, I did better than I had previously performed on the practice tests with a 640 verbal and an amazing ( to me at least) 700 quantitative.   What's all that mean?  It...
Posted by Brad on Tue, 06 Feb 2007 01:30:00 PST

NowPublic

This is an interesting, informative, and entertaining website I came across from Flickr.com.NowPublicmy posts are available heremaybe I have too many blogs...Blogs, yeah I got steenkin blogsMyspaceFli...
Posted by Brad on Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:30:00 PST

cardiac procedure

so they stuck wire up my femoral artery and into my heart to look for a 1/2 pound of bacon but it wasn't there.   No blockage and i got a decent buzz from the sedatives not bad for a day's w...
Posted by Brad on Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:47:00 PST

2 coming up events...

Two cool things coming up musically---yo la tengo at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor never heard of 'em? Shame on you google it or something Secondly, i'm getting geeked up for a weekend trip to DC ...
Posted by Brad on Tue, 03 Oct 2006 05:50:00 PST

The Church at the Magic Bag

Quite possibly the best Church gig I've seen in 20 years...Yea, ya know the "Under the Milky Way" cats...still making music and peddling it around the globe.Rob Dickinson (from The Catherine Wheel--"b...
Posted by Brad on Mon, 14 Aug 2006 03:07:00 PST

inked!

So I got a new tattoo...actually it was a family event.  Yes, I'm that guy...the one that takes his daughter to get her first tat....In my defense, she's 18 in less than 3 weeks and is set on get...
Posted by Brad on Wed, 02 Aug 2006 10:11:00 PST

damn kids get off my lawn!

So these kids asked me if I was a hippy, or had been a hippy.   ferdaluvofmike!  I was born after friggin Woodstock and watched with glee as my dad chased potheads out of the neighborho...
Posted by Brad on Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:43:00 PST

It's just a snapshot....is it art?

I'm not claiming to be Ansel Adams, or even Gomez Adams,  but I was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time to take this image of an unearthly sunset perched, seemingly, at th...
Posted by Brad on Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:50:00 PST

back from the edge of surreality....

So, Melanie and I went to Vegas and The Grand Canyon.  There was a fire on the opposite rim of the canyon, the pic on my profile page is the sunset behind all the smoke.  The next day the vi...
Posted by Brad on Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:00:00 PST