Today, Reagan and I celebrate our second anniversary. Woo hoo.

If you get bored easily, do this instead. If you are looking for a less entertaining way to burn through this Friday afternoon, read on. It seems like not matter what I do, I can’t get away from Ryan freaking Seacrest. It all started when he was on the cover of one of my magazines, recently. I mean, the guy has always been around. How long has American Idol been on, now? But Lately, it seems like Seacrest over-saturation/inundation, has been taken to new heights, at least as far as the media that I subject myself to, is concerned.

It used to be that I would only have to put up with the guy during American Idol (by default) because Reagan is a pretty regular watcher. Even if I’m not in the same room, I have to hear his mindless banter with the contestants, and attempts to land a verbal zinger on Simon. This was more than enough for me. In fact that only thing that made it bearable was watching Joel McHale make fun of the exact same Seacrest garbage that was making me crazy. If you ever watch the Soup, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Ok, so there was that. Then suddenly, Seacrest starts hosting the Times Square New Year show with Dick Clark. Holy crap. Is Seacrest the new Dick Clark?

Not that I really have anything against Seacrest. I don’t. It just seems like his face and name are everywhere lately (possibly seems like this since American Idol is underway, again). But today was the kicker.

As I mentioned previously, I have a pretty hefty stack of books on the reading list for this year, already. So I have been trying to push through and finish one of the books that I got for Christmas. It is TSAR, by Ted Bell. The book is like a modern James Bondish, spy novel. The main character, Alex Hawke, is even British. The author does a pretty good job of dropping all sorts of Pop-culture knick knacks into the plot, making it relatable. So there I am, reading a long, as I ride the train into work this morning and whose name pops up in the book? The little sport coat wearing guy himself, R. Seacrest.

It is comforting to know that Seacrest will still be getting gigs in the future even if it is  hosting a media junket to showcase the launch of a modern Russian airship, styled after the old Zeppelins.

Growing up in Salt Lake valley, I am no stranger to the winter inversions that occurred there. Even though the air over the valley would get dangerously loaded up with particulate matter between storms, it sure made for some dramatic sunsets. In NYC, we don’t have the inversions, but we can rely on our good neighbor New Jersey to give us an equally dramatic effect via their oil refineries. Thanks for the gorgeous sunset, Jerz.

I’m not really sure when the whole digital v. analog debate began, but it has certainly gone the rounds. Vinyl v. CD/Mp3; tube amp v. solid state; 35mm v. 12mpx; Super8 v. HDvid; and the list goes on forever. Something that I have found interesting is the way that society has clung to the analog format, refusing to let it disappear into obscurity. The fact that one can still purchase LPs and turntables is one example of this. I thought that for sure, after Pioneer first developed the jog-wheel CD player that turntables would go the way of the dinosaur. Then, there was Marshall, bringing back the tube guitar amp. For whatever reason, you just can’t digitally imitate that tube sound with solid state amps. In the last couple of days, I have been reading about a VC group that bought all of the the old film making equipment from Polaroid. They are going to try to develop a new type of instant film, to keep the format alive.

I personally try to enjoy the benefits of both digital and analog. I am a huge fan of vinyl records and tube amps. But I have found myself on the opposite side of the argument when it comes to photography. I have been wanting to get a really good DSLR for a while now, and I think that Adobe Cs3 is pretty much the coolest thing ever invented. Good thing I have Reagan to balance me out. Her birthday is just around the corner. One of the gifts that she has been asking for was a Polaroid camera. I talked her out of it. Then she started asking for a Holga. I didn’t even know what that one was at first. She had to educate me about them. They are cheap plastic Chinese built toy cameras, that produce funky images. I couldn’t wrap my head around why she would want to waste money on such a piece of crap, especially since it requires a weird format of film and you have to go through all of the trouble of getting it developed etc.. After she educated me a bit, I understood why she wanted one. We watched a couple of podcasts last night about the different mods that you can make to them and some of the different effects that they can produce. I got really excited for her to try it out. She ordered it last night.

Despite the diverging opinions that Reagan and I have stylistically, I feel like our personalities complement each other enough, that we will most likely never become bored with life. Hooray for that. Thanks for bringing it back to the roots, Reag.

Reagan and I both woke up this morning with nasty colds. I worked from home, and she was able to come home early. I was able to wrap things up around 6, and logout. So we took advantage and played several rounds of sequence. Reagan received it as an early birthday gift, recently. It was the perfect day, not to have to go outside. It snowed this morning and rained the rest of the day. Reagan and I both have chapped noses from wiping them so much. Hopefully this hefty dose of Nyquil that I just took, will help me feel like a million bucks in the morning.

The first time I ever saw/heard of the White Stripes was back in the days when there were actually videos on MTV. I saw the video for “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.” That song is still one of my favorite White Stripes songs. Come to think of it, that song probably is my favorite song by them. In the video, Jack comes home from being away and his house is absolutely trashed. As he walks through the house surveying the damage, there is a projector shining on the wall, showing the events that caused its ruin. I really liked the concept of the video. Buuuuuuuuttttttt, that isn’t the song that I’m going to share today. Instead, I’m sharing my second favorite White Stripes song. Oh, actually, pause for a moment. It wouldn’t be fair if I failed to mention that, although I considered myself a fan, after seeing the video mentioned above, I didn’t really start to get into the WS until I was dating Reagan. She had a couple of their albums on her Ipod, which we often listened to in the car. I ended up collecting the entire discography.

Back to the point, I’m sharing the song called “Offend in Every Way.” I love not only the guitar in this song (melodic and dirty), but I think that it is lyrically brilliant. It is especially topical for Reagan and myself. I feel like we have a propensity to offend people when in social settings. Mostly Reagan, but I try to do my part too, hahahaha. Ask her about the baby p*** story, some time.

Here is the song.

I swear, I have been kind of sick so many times this year. It is kind of ridiculous. I have never had a full blown cold, or flu, or any of that. I get stuffed up at night and in the morning, and sneeze a lot during the day. I also get the headache behind my eyes. So annoying.

At least I haven’t had to deal with the full on, misery of the rhino virus like Reagan has. She is actually really sick for the second time in like 6 weeks. Of course it always happens when I’m chained to my desk on some super time suck of a project. Which makes it so that I can’t really even be around in the evenings to make soup and do the other, take-care-of -sick-spouse duties.

Anyway, she is rocking the dayquil, and I’m throwing back zinc/vitamin C lozenges. Fingers crossed that we can kick whatever it is, that’s ailing us, then ride it out until Spring without further incident.

Piper Playing with some toys in her crib from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

This is one of several Videos that Reagan took last Friday while hanging out with Piper. There is also this one of Piper having a therapy session. Plus a couple of others that you can check out on my Vimeo page, if you are interested in cuteness.

Reagan and I had a pretty good weekend. Saturday we went riding at Mountain Creek. We arrived at the resort pretty early, and were able to get some good time in before it got too crowded. It had been a while since the last time Reagan did any snowboarding, so we just kind of took it easy, while Reagan got in her groove again.

In afternoon, we visited Piper. She was doing great. She has been really mellow, the last couple of weeks. It makes the visits a lot of fun, because she is content just hanging out on laps and playing with whatever is handed to her.

Sunday, I woke up fighting off a migraine, so I decided that it would be best, not to tempt it. I stayed in bed pretty much all day. I feel like it is probably a result of my lack of rest, over the past several weeks. Reagan was very nice to me all day, and made me crepes for dinner. Mmmmmm, Crepes.

I had to take a picture of this, because it made me laugh so hard. Part of the reason that I found it so amusing, is because it reminds me of the kind of crap that I used to write, when I was in grade school. When I first started learning about philosophy and stuff. Every once in a while, I would come up with a thought that I thought bordered on profound, or sublime. But it was usually something like the pseudo-truism in the picture above. Take a bunch of old cliches, mix a couple together, then put some ridiculous qualifier like “alive” at the end. At least there were no mis-spellings. Nice work, buddy. I’m curious to see how you rank non-living weapons, in order of “danger.” I bet double-sided razorblades are up there toward the top of the list. Those things can be pretty freaking dangerous. I bet a lot of people cut themselves with them, just trying to get them out of their pocket, to use as a weapon. I’m pretty sure that the only thing in danger of the author’s mental weapon, is his GPA and his criminal record. Keep up the good work, youth in NYC.