I am the ghost of groovymother.com. Woooooo!

This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.

It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.

Filed under 'me'

September 26, 2012

Tintype Portrait

Tintype Portrait

Tintype portraits by (and copyrighted) Photobooth SF.

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Tintype Portrait

Tintype Portrait

Tintype portraits by (and copyrighted) Photobooth SF.

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Tintype Portrait

Tintype Portrait

Tintype portraits by (and copyrighted) Photobooth SF.

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September 22, 2012

Tintypes

Tintypes

It's practically a SF techie cliché, but Lacey & I had our portraits taken at Photobooth SF today. Better quality scans to follow midweek.

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May 19, 2011

First Offline Labs shirts

First Offline Labs shirts

Ordered from Zazzle. Look pretty danged good.

Sōsh t-shirts for sharing with chums will come soon :)

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April 9, 2011

Me, 1977.

Me, 1977.

Scanning old photos. I think my parents took this using some primitive version of Hipstagram.

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January 9, 2011

Exquisite Tweets from @RodBegbie, @junelin, @clizzin, @LaughAtlantis

or “Things to bear in mind when taking advice from a small, Asian girl”

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October 31, 2010

Tea Party Protestors

Tea Party Protestors

Our hallowe'en costumes this year. Joy picked up clothes from a thrift shop, I did signs.

Tea Party Protestors

Tea Party Protestors

Our hallowe'en costumes this year. Joy picked up clothes from a thrift shop, I did signs.

Tea Party Protestors

Tea Party Protestors

Our hallowe'en costumes this year. Joy picked up clothes from a thrift shop, I did signs.

September 14, 2010

Going Offline

[TL;DR: I’m starting something awesome, go and sign up for our mailing list to be the first to find out about it]

On August 1st 2010, I was an Engineering Manager with Slide. On September 17th 2010, I am leaving my role as Member of Technical Staff at Google to co-found my own startup.

What a difference a month can make!


First, an important statement that I can’t emphasize enough: This is not a reaction to the Slide acquisition. No-one should attempt to spin this as “Rod didn’t want to work for Google, so quit.” If anything, the opportunities presented by being part of Google made the decision to leave considerably harder.

I’m leaving behind an incredible team who I know are going to kick 41 shades of ass, and I’ll be standing in the crowds cheering them all the way.

Mr. Nolte will see you now


So two questions that need answering: 1) What are we going to build? and 2) Why now? Let’s answer the latter first.

Why now?

For years, I’ve stated that my goal in life was to find someone with great ideas, then be their technical co-founder. I know my limits — I am not someone who can come up with blue-sky ideas out of thin air — but also my strengths — I can take someone else’s great concept and nitpick, tweak, enhance, argue and generally make it much more awesomer.

I’ve worked with Rishi for close to two years and we have a great working relationship. He’s the product guy, I’m the engineer-with-product-guy-tendencies. When we started chatting over coffee one day about ideas for potential startups, one in particular immediately clicked with me. I got excited and hand-wavey about ways it could expand; ways to shift the focus to make it more powerful to solve problems I know that my friends and I have faced.

Initially, I said I’d be happy to be an advisor to Rishi if he decided to work further on it. But as I described the idea to Joy one evening, she called my bluff. I kept saying things like “Our idea is…”, or “What we would do is…” She pointed out that I was more bought in than I was letting on to myself. So I emailed Rishi and said I was in.

So why now? Because we have a great idea, a killer team, and it’s so easy these days. Starting a web software firm is practically free — Between open-source software platforms, dirt-cheap virtual server “cloud” hosting, and a squillion online services that handle the tricky parts for $25/month, not to mention being in a city surrounded by entrepreneurial sorts who are happy to give advice, it’s almost harder not to start your own thing!

What are we going to build?

Offline Labs business cards

So we have an idea, a team, a company name, a two-month bootstrapping plan, and sheer damned determination; but what are we building?

At this point, I have to turn a tad coy in such a public venue since we’re still at an early stage, but the crux of it: Building online tools that make it easier for people to find things to do, find friends to do them with, and keep track of the memories after the fact.

Social software like Twitter and Facebook has made it vastly more easy to keep track of our friends online. We want to flip this on its head and use everyone’s newly-formed online connections to make it simpler to find things to do, in the real world. Y’know… “offline”.

Sounds intriguing, non? You’re left desperately wanting to know more details, oui? Then hop over post-haste to our exclusive limited-time friends-and-family mailing list signup page. That’ll be the first place we share our plans, thoughts, and prototypes, and just giving us your email address will be a hugely-appreciated show of support.

And if you want more details sooner, offer to buy me coffee or a beer. I’m a poor bootstrapping type now, and will excitedly bend the ear and pick the brain of anyone who offers me liquid refreshment.


So here I go, putting my money where my mouth is, jumping in feet first, dropping the english muffin into the start-up toaster and seeing if it pops up hot & buttered… Wish me luck!

August 9, 2010

Wayfare Tavern

Wayfare Tavern

Celebrating the Sloogle acquisition.

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May 19, 2010

Time to get Married

The following is my answer to the question “Question for men: How did you decide it was time to get married?” on Quora

When I first started dating Joy, I warned her that I didn’t see myself ever getting married.

Six months later, I’d proposed.

The turning point was probably when we’d been together a few months, and we were talking about moving in together. I suggested buying something, rather than renting, and Joy pointed out that I was talking about making a 30 year commitment to a mortgage, but wasn’t considering marriage.

She was right. I could see myself with her for the rest of our lives.

So, I’m afraid the answer from my perspective: “You just know.”

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May 16, 2010

The importance of an API

The following is my answer to the question “Rod Begbie, what are all the reasons you want a systematic way to retrieve your answers from Quora?” on Quora

Off the bat, it’s important to state: I like Quora. I’ve had tremendous fun on the site, have learned a bunch, and gotten to gather some top notch insight from smart folks.

But the other day, I found myself spending 10 minutes writing an answer on Quora, and realised I was throwing my time away. I was writing something that will be seen by, at most, a couple of hundred people.

A couple of hundred intelligent people, sure. A couple of hundred relatively-influential-in-the-tech-industry, maximum-of-two-degrees-away-from-the-founders-of-Facebook people, even. However, that pales in insignificance to the number of wonderful, influential and awesome people out there on Teh Internets as a whole.

And even assuming that the beta-wall drops and the great unwashed get to gaze upon the wisdom of Quora, my writing is still at the behest of the great Quora gods. If they delete or edit my post, or the hard drive crashes, or they decide they’re getting out of the Q&A business and turning off the servers, all my time is lost.

By writing an answer on Quora, I was giving my time and value to Quora The Company, without getting anything of any real value back. Yes people could vote me up or down, or comment on what I wrote, but I can theoretically get that by writing a blog post and linking it on Reddit or Hacker News.

The Quora terms of service make it clear that I “own” my content. I want a way to get a feed of everything I contribute so I can store it away and do with it what I want.

Why is this important? Twitter’s a grand example. Right now, it is impossible to download more than 3,200 of your own tweets. The API simply balks if you request anything older. Luckily, I started archiving my tweets long before hitting that limit, so I have access to everything I’ve ever posted there.

Similarly, I upload my photos to Flickr. I get all the benefits of Flickr’s superior community and organizational tools, but am also able to run a script which downloads and backs-up all my photos, their descriptions, tags and comments.

And in both these examples, I am able to pull my content in real time and display it here on my blog. My output is collated and tagged in the way I want. I can run a blog search and find something I wrote two years ago, whether blogpost, tweet or photo description.

So, until Quora offers such a feed, I am resolved to not answering any more questions. Or rather, if I do, it will be by writing a blog post and posting the link to Quora.

April 5, 2010

CNN: Is Foursquare the New Twitter?

Standard tech filler piece that aired on CNN this morning. Only notable for including, at 1m30s, a snippet of me being a Man On The Street at SxSW. (Thanks to Doug Mak for seeing this on TV and telling me about it!)

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March 19, 2010

“Creatives”

This is video of a 5 minute talk I gave at Ignite Bay Area 2. It’s inspired by the collision of cultures ten years ago at my first job, when they went from a purely tech/business/enterprisey consulting firm to being a cool sexy web firm. (I was worried before giving the talk that the problems had all been solved in the last decade — the reaction I got from the audience suggests not!)

The video isn’t the clearest, so the slides (sans nice fonts) are embedded below. If you hit the Play button on the slides at roughly the time I start talking, it should auto-advance in time with my blethering.

Incidentally, there are a bunch of upcoming Ignite events in San Francisco — at the Chirp, Google I/O and Web 2.0 Expo conferences — and it’s fabulous fun (and a great challenge). I highly recommend submitting talks.

February 16, 2010

Dead tree, bitches!

Dead tree, bitches!

Hooray!

January 5, 2010

Walking into the sunset

Walking into the sunset

A fitting final shot of Clyde, one of a series of portraits taken on Sunday by the wonderful Kelly Hoffer. (She has some more shots from the session here)

Eulogy for the Clydester.

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January 2, 2010

MMX - XXL

13 years ago

I have never been svelte.

This much should be stated at the start. The closest I’ve come to a healthy weight was during my four years as a student. Deprived of the contents of my parents’ fridge, and not yet able to enjoy the slap-up dining that a salary would afford, I was never “skinny” or beerbellyless”.

But I am currently fatter than I’ve ever been. I’ve put on almost 30lbs in the last year. Something needs to change.

I chose January 1st for two reasons:

  1. It’s traditional to make a new year resolution. The new beginning of a new year, and all that.
  2. I could gorge during the Christmas period.

By luck, last week, Richard Wiseman posted a blog entry on how to keep your resolution. Some good solid advice in there. In particular, state and track your goal publicly, and keep it measurable.

This has worked for me in the past. I decided that my goal for 2008 was to move to San Francisco, was open about it, and by the end of March, I had a job all lined up.

So here is my official goal for 2010: Weigh 210lbs on December 31st 2010.

That’s a drop of almost 60lbs. I think I can probably shift about 5–10lbs this month (the start of a diet always sees a quick drop), then sustain losing 1lb a week for the rest of the year.

My expectation is that this will require experimentation and tweaking. So here is my plan for January:

  • Using Lose It, a free iPhone app to keep track of calories. (Hat tip to Daniel Jalkut for mentioning Lose It on Twitter). I’m doing good old-fashioned calorie counting—no complex points calculation, no rules on what can and can’t be eaten. Your standard “Burn more than you consume, and you’ll lose weight” plan. This isn’t about changing what I eat; it’s about changing the quantity I eat.
  • In the spirit of keeping it public, I purchased the Withings WiFi Body Scale, a sleek and sexy set of bathroom scales which upload your data to the web. My progress can now be tracked by anyone at @lardyarsedgit. Go on and follow it! One tweet a day, and it’ll make me feel a lot better!
  • Regarding exercise, I’m starting off easy. Not going to join a gym or buy (another) treadmill. Instead, I’m going to try to take a smattering of small steps. For the beginning, I’m going to stop riding the elevator at work (taking the stairs to and from my team area on the 6th floor), and pledge to take Bacon for a 40-minute walk three times a week. If I can’t do these little things, there’s no point throwing $$$ at a gym.

At the end of each month, I’ll adjust the plan. But right now, it all feels very achievable.

My BHAG for the year? Next January, I’ll be able to sign up for The San Francisco Marathon Training Program and be able to run the SF Marathon in July 2011.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

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January 1, 2010

Smooch

Smooch

Note the champagne in a margarita glass. I AM CLASSY!

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Failed Family Portrait, New Year 2010

Failed Family Portrait, New Year 2010

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Family Portrait, New Year 2010

Family Portrait, New Year 2010

How we saw in 2010: Lounging around in bed with the bassets.

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November 3, 2009

Four Eyes!

Four Eyes!

New glasses.

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October 30, 2009

Obi Wan Lebowski

Obi Wan Lebowski

"These are not the nihilists you're looking for."

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October 25, 2009

25101976

25101976

Thank you to my little sister for the birthday present of a t-shirt that is incomprehensible to Americans.

From Primitive State in Edinburgh.

Ten Years in My Life… One Year On

Still a US citizen, married to Joy, living in San Francisco with two bassets. Only thing that has changed was the job.

Yes, this is my low-rent Feltron-style annual report!

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August 22, 2009

Me & Joy

Me & Joy

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They said “No Touching.” They didn’t say “No Licking.”

They said “No Touching.”  They didn’t say “No Licking.”

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Me, Joy and 2 World Series trophies

Me, Joy and 2 World Series trophies

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Me, Joy and 2 World Series trophies

Me, Joy and 2 World Series trophies

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July 12, 2009

19th Century Carnival Barker?

19th Century Carnival Barker?

or.. why grown men shouldn't be trusted with their own beard clippers.

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June 29, 2009

Asking the questions that need to be asked

Me: “Apparently, in the first draft of Back to the Future, the time machine was a fridge, but they changed that because they were worried about kids climbing into fridges and getting trapped.”

Joy: “How did they get the fridge up to 88 miles per hour?”

June 7, 2009

IMDB: Rod Begbie

This cracks me up no end. I now have an IMDB page, thanks to a short film I helped write a few years ago (watchable on the site). Looking forward to when I’m indexed in the Oracle of Bacon.

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April 11, 2009

Giant Rod Does Not Approve of Your Puny Creme Eggs

Giant Rod Does Not Approve of Your Puny Creme Eggs

(Inspired by Giant Jill)

March 20, 2009

Wonky Mirror

Wonky Mirror

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Wonkymirrors

Wonkymirrors

Finally got around to hanging this awesome mirror Joy & I picked up a couple of months ago.

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January 8, 2009

Moscone Center

Moscone Center

Gallantly, unprofessionally, requesting a prize. #mimobot #macworld

(Taken at the Mimobot booth and posted to Twitter in a shameless attempt to win a free USB drive!)

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December 24, 2008

Art of Shaving

Art of Shaving

After. Cleanshaven and hair descruffed.

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Art of Shaving

Art of Shaving

During

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Art of Shaving

Art of Shaving

Before

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December 18, 2008

Obamified

Obamified

Made with the amazingcakes Obamafy Photo Booth plugin.

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November 5, 2008

What to name my Whatnot?

What to name my Whatnot?

My Muppet Whatnot arrived! (Compare to the online comp.)

Anyone got any suggestions on what to name him?

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October 29, 2008

rodbegbie's first tweet

A chance to revel in my earlyadopteritude.

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October 23, 2008

Ten Years in My Life: My Love Life

Ten Years in My Life: My Love Life

On Saturday, 24th October 1998, I flew from Glasgow to Boston, with little more than a suitcase of clothes and a credit card with a decently high limit.

It's now 24th October 2008. Ten years have gone by. Time for little personal retrospection. How have I spent these ten years?

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Ten Years in My Life: My Employers

Ten Years in My Life: My Employers

On Saturday, 24th October 1998, I flew from Glasgow to Boston, with little more than a suitcase of clothes and a credit card with a decently high limit.

It's now 24th October 2008. Ten years have gone by. Time for little personal retrospection. How have I spent these ten years?

Ten Years in My Life: Number of Basset Hounds Owned

Ten Years in My Life: Number of Basset Hounds Owned

On Saturday, 24th October 1998, I flew from Glasgow to Boston, with little more than a suitcase of clothes and a credit card with a decently high limit.

It's now 24th October 2008. Ten years have gone by. Time for little personal retrospection. How have I spent these ten years?

Ten Years in My Life: US Immigration Status

Ten Years in My Life: US Immigration Status

On Saturday, 24th October 1998, I flew from Glasgow to Boston, with little more than a suitcase of clothes and a credit card with a decently high limit.

It's now 24th October 2008. Ten years have gone by. Time for little personal retrospection. How have I spent these ten years?

Ten Years in My Life: Where I’ve Lived

Ten Years in My Life: Where I’ve Lived

On Saturday, 24th October 1998, I flew from Glasgow to Boston, with little more than a suitcase of clothes and a credit card with a decently high limit.

It's now 24th October 2008. Ten years have gone by. Time for little personal retrospection. How have I spent these ten years?

September 30, 2008

i has a big metal hippo

i has a big metal hippo

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September 19, 2008

Me right, now.

Me right, now.

For the Me, right now pool.

Ver rules:

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

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July 10, 2008

Yankee Stadium GigaPan

Yankee Stadium GigaPan

Me and Joy at Yankee Stadium. This is a screenshot of a zoomed-in portion of THIS photo, which covers the entire stadium.

My current mood is somewhere between mind-blown at the technology and terrified at the possibilities.

June 17, 2008

Do not go and see Signs. It is a bad, bad movie.

From 2002: Why I will never see an M. Night Shyamalan movie again, and am completely unsurprised at the vitriol being unpoured on The Happening.

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April 2, 2008

My first appearance on Current TV

My first appearance on Current TV

Or, more accurately, my avatar's first appearance on Current.

A comment I posted to the website was pulled into the Current News broadcast at 11pm.

More details of what's going on at TechCrunch.

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March 22, 2008

My throw for @sepiateam

My throw for @sepiateam

Paper!

March 14, 2008

Sun in wintertime, We will feel just fine

I’ve posted this as a tweet the other day, but to fill in the details…

I’ve accepted a job offer to move to San Francisco next month to work in the online group of Current TV. For those unfamiliar, the lazy shorthand is “Al Gore’s cable network”, though it’s much more than that. I’m excited to be starting work for a company with a serious social mission, and it’s been clear to me from talking with them that their ideas for how the web can be part of that mission are extensive.

My reasons for wanting to make a cross-country move are varied. A simple one is itchy feet after close-to ten years in Boston. I made the jump here immediately after graduation, and feel like it’s time for a change.

A larger reason comes from becoming more aware of the geek community in the Bay Area, and wanting to be a part of it. The attitudes towards collaborating on projects and trying out clever ideas are lacking in Boston (as anyone who’s ever stood near me at a WebInno event will have heard me grumble), and sites like Twitter and Upcoming have only amplified what I feel like I’m missing out on. Hopefully once I’m there, I’ll be able to dive into these communities.

And finally, I’ve wanted to live in San Francisco ever since the first time I visited, three years ago. Last summer’s California vacation was secretly an attempt to convince Joy that moving to SF would be good for us. She fell for it!

There’s a lot I’ll miss about Boston (I’m already dreading moving to a state entirely free of Dunkin Donuts), but hopefully this is just the next step in Joy’s and my adventure.

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March 13, 2008

My favourite wedding photo

My favourite wedding photo

Today, I received the DVD containing scans of our wedding photos from ScanCafe. I still have to sort through them and organize them before uploading them to Flickr, but here's a taster which I think sums up the whole ceremony -- Myself and Joy (with our chum, TC) sat on the bleachers at ImprovBoston laughing uproariously at the excellent "Scottish" "accent" of our officiator, IB's Artistic Director, Will Luera.

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February 5, 2008

Me & David Ortiz

Me & David Ortiz

I finally have photographic proof that I met David Ortiz at CES.

Because my camera was a tad busted, the folks behind me in line offered to take my photo with their camera, then email me the photo. It arrived last night, so now you can all see evidence of the strong personal friendship me & Papi share.

(I'm the one on the right)

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January 9, 2008

Be jealous

Be jealous

I won a raffle at the blogger party. Amongst the prizes were $300 in cash and free return flights on Virgin America.

My prize? An Intel flight suit. Apparently, Intel was sponsoring one of those Zero-G parabolic flights, and had some custom flight suits made. Do I get a flight on the vomit comet? Do I bollocks. Just the suit.

Not pictured is the huge Intel logo on the back. Discussions soon turned to the idea of wearing it, heading to the Intel booth on the show floor, and pretending to be booth staff. "Our new processor is smaller than an ant, but can do multiplication almost three times faster than even the most skilled ant."

Oh, and when I was carrying the suit, I felt something papery in one of the pockets. Of course, my first assumption was that there was a crisp $100 bill in there. Nope. Sick bag!

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January 8, 2008

Me & Amanda Beard

Me & Amanda Beard

Signing at the Go Daddy tent. There were only five or six people in the line, so I figured what the hey.

As a few of us were discussing in the line, Photoshop has been good to her.

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October 29, 2007

3 days to reality - The Boston Globe

Globe article about Startup Weekend Boston, quotes me thusly: “Laptop karate”. I have no recollection as to what the hell that meant.

October 22, 2007

Game 7 — An IM conversation

Joy & I watched tonight’s Game 7 in different rooms (Joy upstairs in the bedroom, me downstairs in the living room), but we both had our laptops open, because we’re both massive geeks. Here’s some edited highlights from our IM conversations:

8:57:00 Joy Begbie: tell us, Dane Cook!
8:57:04 Joy Begbie: how many Octobers are there??
8:57:32 Rod Begbie: Frankly, I am So Fucking Excited about tonight’s game, even my distaste for Dane Cook can’t bring me down.

9:15:54 Joy Begbie: the commentator just said, “a base hit cuts the lead in half”
9:16:05 Joy Begbie: uh, no… a RUN does that.
9:16:08 Joy Begbie: fuckwad

(Mike Lowell catches the ball for a double-play, with runners on 1st and 3rd)

10:54:24 Joy Begbie: heart attack.
10:54:40 Rod Begbie: That was 99% luck, 1% awesomeness.
10:55:09 Joy Begbie: Mike Lowell was involved. There was easily 3% awesomeness.
10:56:02 Joy Begbie: but also a HELL of a lot of luck
10:56:10 Rod Begbie: Especially on Lofton’s base running.
10:56:16 Rod Begbie: That should have been a run-scored.
10:56:19 Joy Begbie: and many thanks to their third base coach for confusing Kenny Lofton

(Jacoby Ellsbury makes a great catch in left field)

10:59:51 Rod Begbie: Jacoby would be a good name for a basset hound.
10:59:53 Rod Begbie: I’m just saying.
11:00:01 Rod Begbie: “Jacoby Begbie”

11:02:47 Rod Begbie: Glimpses of Batshit in the dugout. I miss Batshit.
11:02:58 Joy Begbie: me too
11:22:39 Rod Begbie: Do you think Tito might include Batshit in the world series order, instead of Gagné?

(Jonathan Papelbon strikes out two to end the top of the 8th)

11:21:27 Rod Begbie: It was great, looking at the intensity on Papelbons’ face as he walked off the field…
11:21:39 Rod Begbie: Knowing that in about 45 minutes, he’s going to be letting it all out by dancing around like an idiot!

(A Fox announcer mentions the MVP award)

11:30:21 Rod Begbie: Who do you think should get MVP?
11:30:22 Joy Begbie: ooh, good question, who will be the MVP?
11:30:26 Joy Begbie: Josh Beckett
11:30:30 Rod Begbie: Almost definitely.
11:31:20 Joy Begbie: Grand slam notwithstanding, there’s nobody else I can think of that has put in such a phenomenal performance
11:31:12 Rod Begbie: No-one is as responsible for the comeback in game 5 as Beckett.
11:31:41 Rod Begbie: It was almost like “Hey! Beckett’s pitching! We’re bound to win this one, so let’s have some fun!”
11:31:52 Rod Begbie: Set the tone for the games back at Fenway.

(Dustin Pedroia hits a three-RBI shot off of the Green Monster)

11:43:44 Joy Begbie: I am GRINNING right now.
11:43:49 Rod Begbie: PETEY!
11:43:59 Rod Begbie: He may suck at cribbage….
11:44:04 Rod Begbie: but I’ll take that hit!
11:44:12 Joy Begbie: hot dog!

(Cameras show David Ortiz in the dugout, already wearing goggles in preperation for the champagne shower)

11:56:13 Rod Begbie: GET THOSE GOGGLES OFF, PAPI! DON‘T JINX IT!!!!!

(Coco Crisp smashes into the bullpen wall, making the catch that finishes the game)

11:57:59 Joy Begbie: SMART defensive move from Tito…
11:58:07 Joy Begbie: ouch
11:58:12 Rod Begbie: So glad that Coco got to make his mark on the game.
11:58:33 Joy Begbie: he is going to feel that later, i think
11:58:47 Rod Begbie: If only we had someone else who could take his place in the lineup…..

(The Sox win)

12:02:02 Joy Begbie: that was a DIRTY slo-mo of Tek and Pap
12:02:06 Rod Begbie: I want Papelbon’s crazed star jump as my wallpaper!

12:12:09 Rod Begbie: “Is that Papelbon? He’s a little whacko, isn’t he?”
12:12:23 Joy Begbie: ah, such insight
12:12:25 Rod Begbie: Why yes, Fox idiot, yes he is.

12:14:28 Rod Begbie: Losing manager doesn’t get a press conference? Looks like they’re interviewing him round the back of a concessions stand!
12:14:46 Joy Begbie: sad, really.
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October 5, 2007

The Happy Couple

The Happy Couple

Celebrating 4 years of marriage. Linen and/or silk not pictured.

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June 13, 2007

Me and Penn

Me and Penn

After the show at the Rio.

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Me and Teller

Me and Teller

After the show at the Rio.

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June 12, 2007

Lion Hat

Lion Hat

Super-classy!

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June 10, 2007

Us at General Sherman

Us at General Sherman

The largest tree in the world (note: no longer considered the largest living thing in the world -- a field of fungus is)

Me between two big-ass trees

Me between two big-ass trees

The giant forest at Sequoia National Park

June 8, 2007

Happy Rod

Happy Rod

In front of Ghirardelli Square. They have chocolate there, you know.

April 19, 2007

"groovy mother" :: First Post!

Lummy! It’s been five years since I started writing on groovymother.com. Gonna have to spend some time this weekend doing visualizations of my post history.

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July 27, 2006

Baldy!

Baldy!

Having woken up to a particularly stonking case of bedhead this morning, I inwardly-dialogued "fuck it!" and asked Joy to help me take my beardtrimmer to my head.

Lesson learned? Next time, use a longer setting on the trimmer, cause my blond hair is nearly transparent this short.

January 30, 2006

Slumber Party

Slumber Party

Joy phoned me on my cellphone at work this week.

"Look at your cellphone."

"What?"

"Look at your cellphone."

"Huh?"

I look at my cellphone. This shot, taken by Joy that morning, was my phone's wallpaper.

"Bitch."

(Apparently, when Joy decided to take the photo, Bacon was asleep too. However, by the time she'd worked out how to take a photo with my phone, he was just staring.)

September 14, 2005

The Jolly Wacky Executionist (video)

Found whilst rummaging through folders on my webserver: A (crappily-encoded) video of a sketch I wrote and performed in at the Improv Asylum in 2001.

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April 11, 2005

Not particularly green, but definitely a card

Not particularly green, but definitely a card

This is what all the sweat, paperwork, and panic attacks lead up to: My "green" card.

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April 5, 2005

Immigration officials have a sense of humour, right?

Immigration officials have a sense of humour, right?

The location? Outside the JFK Building, home of the Boston branch of the US Immigration Services.

The occassion? Just successfully had my Green Card interview.

The T-shirt? A gift from my sister. It reads "I ordered by bride from paulfrank.com"

The shirt? Stayed buttoned-up the whole time I was inside.

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February 1, 2005

Unique But Morally Dubious

Unique But Morally Dubious

The oldest T-shirt in my "collection", it was purchased from the short-lived Deadpan Magazine in 1994. Hrmm... Flickr has "Rotate" but no "Flip" control.

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January 23, 2005

Reverse Clock

Reverse Clock

Another gift from my mum -- A clock which is confusing-as-all-hell to look at frontwards, but works rather splendidly on the back of our bathroom door.

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December 5, 2004

Ah Munna Eat Choo

Ah Munna Eat Choo

Purchased from Threadless

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About This Site

This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.

I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.