nasa found some super old timey light...
like from the beginning of time.
right after JC was born.
(via /.)
22 December 2006
16 December 2006
i just can't look, it's killing me
the problem with free, very good scotch is there's nothing at all preventing you from drinking your body weight in it. thus, i woke up with a headache and, once again, that random feeling where you're not quite sure what's going on. and you're certainly not sure how it's 9:00 and you're usually out of the house somewhere around 830. then, maybe you think, "is it saturday, because i don't remember friday, and i know the maj and i were going to the jingle ball, and i think i'd remember that." and finally, your brain kicks into high gear and you realize, it is friday, and your alarm clock has finally died on you (because you knocked it over one too many times last weekend).
this whole jingle ball thing came about because the maj has connections at z100, and they gave her two tickets and vip access, whatever that means. i'd been listening to z100 in the mornings, and become familiar with the line up. nelly frudato or whatever, nick lachey, the pussycat dolls (who, at the time, i didn't even know of), the fray (who i described to all who asked as "those guys who did that gray's anatomy song"), jojo (who's always on at the gym), evanescence (what is that shit all about, anyway?) and finally, the only real reason to go anyway, the killers. there were other bands, but a few i didn't recognize and the rest sucked.
we got to MSG when jojo was onstage and made right for the "all star bar". this was a bar close to where we were sitting that was, again, free. since scotch was still seeping from my pores, maj and i decided to go with johnnie walker black. but there's something a little disconcerting about being poured a JW black from one of those bar hose thingys. it's, well, it's just not right. and i won't even get into what the barmaid interpreted the phrase, "just a little ice, please," to mean.
now, have any of you out there in netland been in a room with like 50,000 screaming 12-year-olds? i had, twice before, as a veteran of two, uh, well, how do i say this...new kids on the block concerts. one time in the second row. but let me tell you, my perspective (on a great many things, actually), has certainly changed. they are loud. and bouncy. and they don't even have breasts but they know all the words to that "don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me" song (don't get me started on the grammatical faults of that shit). i know now, without a doubt, i will be a hugely annoying parent. anyway, shit rolled through. we spent most of our time hiding in the bar, along with most of the other attendees over the age of 17 who were not there with offspring. we popped out for the gray's anatomy song, because, well, i wanted to. guess who knows the lyrics to that song? every single fucking person in that room except me and the maj. i looked around, stunned, as groups of girls took endless pictures of themselves, waved their cellphones in the air (god, bring back the lighters, at least, please) and acted generally like mentally deficient fish. at one point i actually gasped with fright.
of course, nothing was more disturbing to me than the pussycat dolls debacle. maj explained to me that these girls are strippers or something, or like, burlesque dancers, and they have a club in las vegas and stuff. again, i'd had no idea who these freaks were until i got there, aside from knowing their "music" was strongly sexual and weakly artistic, at least that was my guess from the name. maj really wanted to see them for some reason and so we went back into the fray (no pun intended) and suddenly i felt just like the time i ate a bunch of mushrooms with some friends and went to guillaume's brother's 15th birthday party. in other words, entirely unwell.
the killers, however, made it all worthwhile. they shot a bunch of confetti and streamers up in the air, and sang "when you were young", "can you read my mind", that new xmas song they did, "somebody told me" (at which point everyone in the audience aside from the two of us decided to stand up and start yelling -- we were already at it) and, of course "mr. brightside". needless to say, as soon as that was over, we bolted.
this whole jingle ball thing came about because the maj has connections at z100, and they gave her two tickets and vip access, whatever that means. i'd been listening to z100 in the mornings, and become familiar with the line up. nelly frudato or whatever, nick lachey, the pussycat dolls (who, at the time, i didn't even know of), the fray (who i described to all who asked as "those guys who did that gray's anatomy song"), jojo (who's always on at the gym), evanescence (what is that shit all about, anyway?) and finally, the only real reason to go anyway, the killers. there were other bands, but a few i didn't recognize and the rest sucked.
we got to MSG when jojo was onstage and made right for the "all star bar". this was a bar close to where we were sitting that was, again, free. since scotch was still seeping from my pores, maj and i decided to go with johnnie walker black. but there's something a little disconcerting about being poured a JW black from one of those bar hose thingys. it's, well, it's just not right. and i won't even get into what the barmaid interpreted the phrase, "just a little ice, please," to mean.
now, have any of you out there in netland been in a room with like 50,000 screaming 12-year-olds? i had, twice before, as a veteran of two, uh, well, how do i say this...new kids on the block concerts. one time in the second row. but let me tell you, my perspective (on a great many things, actually), has certainly changed. they are loud. and bouncy. and they don't even have breasts but they know all the words to that "don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me" song (don't get me started on the grammatical faults of that shit). i know now, without a doubt, i will be a hugely annoying parent. anyway, shit rolled through. we spent most of our time hiding in the bar, along with most of the other attendees over the age of 17 who were not there with offspring. we popped out for the gray's anatomy song, because, well, i wanted to. guess who knows the lyrics to that song? every single fucking person in that room except me and the maj. i looked around, stunned, as groups of girls took endless pictures of themselves, waved their cellphones in the air (god, bring back the lighters, at least, please) and acted generally like mentally deficient fish. at one point i actually gasped with fright.
of course, nothing was more disturbing to me than the pussycat dolls debacle. maj explained to me that these girls are strippers or something, or like, burlesque dancers, and they have a club in las vegas and stuff. again, i'd had no idea who these freaks were until i got there, aside from knowing their "music" was strongly sexual and weakly artistic, at least that was my guess from the name. maj really wanted to see them for some reason and so we went back into the fray (no pun intended) and suddenly i felt just like the time i ate a bunch of mushrooms with some friends and went to guillaume's brother's 15th birthday party. in other words, entirely unwell.
the killers, however, made it all worthwhile. they shot a bunch of confetti and streamers up in the air, and sang "when you were young", "can you read my mind", that new xmas song they did, "somebody told me" (at which point everyone in the audience aside from the two of us decided to stand up and start yelling -- we were already at it) and, of course "mr. brightside". needless to say, as soon as that was over, we bolted.
13 December 2006
win ken stein's resignation
i'm a little late coming to this one, especially considering Professor Stein was one of the many who helped mold my young mind in cowwege. and considering this book is directly related to my paycheck.
first off, i haven't read this book, nor do i have any plan to. due partly to professor Stein's hard-line belief that water will destroy the middle east before oil, i see no point in opining over what israel or the palestinians or any other motherfuckers want to do about peace. secondly, i do think "apartheid" is out of line, i'm also confused as to why people want to keep writing books about this bullshit. this will end at one point and one point only: when humanity vanishes.
but the real problem i have with this whole issue (or two i guess--maybe three)
least importantly, the bitchy response from the carter center:
“Although Professor Kenneth Stein has not been actively involved with the Carter Center for more than 12 years, I regret his resignation from the titular position as a fellow.”
if that doesn't throw it out there that Prof. Stein wasn't exactly going to be missed, i don't know what will: Professor Stein used to wash the floors here, he doesn't now, but he did once.
nextly, the god-awful sentence from the NYT:
Mr. Stein also said he had been struck by parts of Mr. Carter’s book that seemed strikingly similar to a work by a different author, but he would not disclose the details.
when are people gonna fucking learn that you can't use the same fucking verb twice in a sentence? unless it's fuck.
and finally, perhaps most disturbing:
David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, dismissed Mr. Stein’s claims. “We’re confident in his work,” Mr. Rosenthal said of Mr. Carter. “Do we check every line in every book? No, but that’s not the issue here. I have no reason to doubt President Carter’s research.”
Do we check our work before we release it to the masses as fact? nah. what's the point in doing all that? i do happen to know that authors warrant and represent that, if their work is one of non-fiction, they take responsibility for any statement they claim is a "fact", so it's not actually the publisher's responsibility (so far as their asses are covered), but, hey, i don't know, if a former president were being accused of fabrications and rejiggling of history, i might want to come out a little stronger than "well, we figured he used to be president, so he must be telling the truth, right? i mean, why wouldn't he? he probably remembers everything that happened accurately and has no personal agenda, so, you know, whatevs."
the end of the article accuses Prof S as being sore at Former president goober because he didn't get enough cred for his work on the book. i know what it's like to be snubbed from the acknowledgments, and i'm a pretty petty and jealous person sometimes, but A: PS isn't the only one lobbing these complaints and B: i've seen the dude teach, his ego is gigantic, but his respect for truth, knowledge and credibility is bigger.
whew.
my foot is fine, super troopers was awesome (as per us.).
UPDATE: it seems i'm having a mighty hard time with follow-through lately, craigslist just reminded me that i neglected to actually link to either article i was yelling over. whoops. i guess it was that urgent need to turn to my actual work every now and again. anyhoo, here you go. and also here.
first off, i haven't read this book, nor do i have any plan to. due partly to professor Stein's hard-line belief that water will destroy the middle east before oil, i see no point in opining over what israel or the palestinians or any other motherfuckers want to do about peace. secondly, i do think "apartheid" is out of line, i'm also confused as to why people want to keep writing books about this bullshit. this will end at one point and one point only: when humanity vanishes.
but the real problem i have with this whole issue (or two i guess--maybe three)
least importantly, the bitchy response from the carter center:
“Although Professor Kenneth Stein has not been actively involved with the Carter Center for more than 12 years, I regret his resignation from the titular position as a fellow.”
if that doesn't throw it out there that Prof. Stein wasn't exactly going to be missed, i don't know what will: Professor Stein used to wash the floors here, he doesn't now, but he did once.
nextly, the god-awful sentence from the NYT:
Mr. Stein also said he had been struck by parts of Mr. Carter’s book that seemed strikingly similar to a work by a different author, but he would not disclose the details.
when are people gonna fucking learn that you can't use the same fucking verb twice in a sentence? unless it's fuck.
and finally, perhaps most disturbing:
David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, dismissed Mr. Stein’s claims. “We’re confident in his work,” Mr. Rosenthal said of Mr. Carter. “Do we check every line in every book? No, but that’s not the issue here. I have no reason to doubt President Carter’s research.”
Do we check our work before we release it to the masses as fact? nah. what's the point in doing all that? i do happen to know that authors warrant and represent that, if their work is one of non-fiction, they take responsibility for any statement they claim is a "fact", so it's not actually the publisher's responsibility (so far as their asses are covered), but, hey, i don't know, if a former president were being accused of fabrications and rejiggling of history, i might want to come out a little stronger than "well, we figured he used to be president, so he must be telling the truth, right? i mean, why wouldn't he? he probably remembers everything that happened accurately and has no personal agenda, so, you know, whatevs."
the end of the article accuses Prof S as being sore at Former president goober because he didn't get enough cred for his work on the book. i know what it's like to be snubbed from the acknowledgments, and i'm a pretty petty and jealous person sometimes, but A: PS isn't the only one lobbing these complaints and B: i've seen the dude teach, his ego is gigantic, but his respect for truth, knowledge and credibility is bigger.
whew.
my foot is fine, super troopers was awesome (as per us.).
UPDATE: it seems i'm having a mighty hard time with follow-through lately, craigslist just reminded me that i neglected to actually link to either article i was yelling over. whoops. i guess it was that urgent need to turn to my actual work every now and again. anyhoo, here you go. and also here.
12 December 2006
Ode to Real Genius
if you are worth anything, you are familiar (intimately) with the 1980s geek fest movie, Real Genius. There are many great things about this movie (in no particular order).
1. it is hilarious. almost every single line in the movie is quotable, which really says something
2. it features possibly the most geeked-out soundtrack ever made. this shit isn't just indie-synth schlock, don henley, robert palmer and byran adams are all represented. for those of you who have yet to see this movie, i won't mention anything about the song in the final scene, because you should see it with purity of mind
3. laslo hollyfeld's #1 car
4. the overarching theme of "war is bad"
5. the fact that this is a 100% geek movie. it's not a geek vs. cool people movie or a "hey, look, geeks are really OK" movie. it's geeks and no one else even makes an appearance (save the beauticians). geeks in their own environment -- as geeky as they want to be. this fact can go unnoticed no longer. applaud the 100% geek film. find me another one!
6. this is more of a theory than a reason the movie is great, but i do believe that Chris Knight is the world's very first hipster. (well, this version of hipster.) he's 90% sarcasm, hates authority, wears ironic t-shirts (and they looked old way back in the '80s!), smart and creative but still a huge slacker until it's absolutely necessary to do some work, loves to party, seemingly living off his parents' dime (except for the liquid nitrogen coins he uses for coffee). oh, and he has "bad on purpose" hair. i think he might be wearing eyeliner as well. just a theory.
7. the last scene of this movie is a fantasy for kids and adults alike
8. there's barely any obscenity or nudity, so when it's cut and played on, say Comedy Central, you don't actually miss much (or anything?), even better with the dvr.
9. what kind of movie randomly throws Stacy Peralta in it as a Pilot? a totally awesome movie.
10. "kent, this is jesus, kent."
1. it is hilarious. almost every single line in the movie is quotable, which really says something
2. it features possibly the most geeked-out soundtrack ever made. this shit isn't just indie-synth schlock, don henley, robert palmer and byran adams are all represented. for those of you who have yet to see this movie, i won't mention anything about the song in the final scene, because you should see it with purity of mind
3. laslo hollyfeld's #1 car
4. the overarching theme of "war is bad"
5. the fact that this is a 100% geek movie. it's not a geek vs. cool people movie or a "hey, look, geeks are really OK" movie. it's geeks and no one else even makes an appearance (save the beauticians). geeks in their own environment -- as geeky as they want to be. this fact can go unnoticed no longer. applaud the 100% geek film. find me another one!
6. this is more of a theory than a reason the movie is great, but i do believe that Chris Knight is the world's very first hipster. (well, this version of hipster.) he's 90% sarcasm, hates authority, wears ironic t-shirts (and they looked old way back in the '80s!), smart and creative but still a huge slacker until it's absolutely necessary to do some work, loves to party, seemingly living off his parents' dime (except for the liquid nitrogen coins he uses for coffee). oh, and he has "bad on purpose" hair. i think he might be wearing eyeliner as well. just a theory.
7. the last scene of this movie is a fantasy for kids and adults alike
8. there's barely any obscenity or nudity, so when it's cut and played on, say Comedy Central, you don't actually miss much (or anything?), even better with the dvr.
9. what kind of movie randomly throws Stacy Peralta in it as a Pilot? a totally awesome movie.
10. "kent, this is jesus, kent."
i blame you for the moonlit sky and the dream that died with the eagle's flight
remember that song "sleeping satellite"? i'd absolutely entirely forgotten about it -- but thanks to this handy dandy music matrix (?), i was able to have the following thought process: "oh man, that song! i remember that song! god, it sucks."
however, let's not hold it against this unknowing little matrix. for most of the day i've been having a grand old time in the world music section. this might also be the only place where you'll go from deep cut rolling stones to nick drake in no moves. rock on.
in more serious news, i had a little minor surgery this morning. two weekends of mosaic-ing a table for the new compy (yes, i am now wild cherry sara, fanboy) left a substantial number of tiny shards of glass all over the floor of the apartment (not to mention xy's feeble, disastrous and pathetic attempt with the nippers, resulting in a single tile shattering into umptillion pieces followed by his feeble, disastrous and pathetic attempt at sweeping it up), one of which (actually two of which) made its way into my dainty little foot. the first was located and removed as swiftly as saddam hussein. #2 proved a little more osama bin laden. so i limped around sunday (to the bocce playoffs, at which we won and then lost and are now out of) and monday (to work, where i complained nearly the entire day to everyone who would listen), unable to work out and catching infinite flack from xy about sitting on the couch with my foot in a basin like an 80-year-old. this morning my concerned co-workers asked about it and i informed them that the damn thing was still in there. they all wanted me to go to the doctor but i'll be damned if i'm gonna mess with four hours of bureaucratic inefficiency and pain for a little sliver of glass. plus, i can't afford the copay. long story still long: we ended up with my foot on the desk and about five people around me, one of which was shoving a (sterilized) needle into my foot. i doubt that i'm really conveying the full weirdness of this situation, but i promise you, having someone poke your foot with a (sterilized) needle while it's sitting on your desk with people you work with is more like something that would happen in one of my lynch-esque dreams than reality, but go figure.
coach dball just pointed out that i forgot to "end" the story. a "denouement" was expected, he said. i swiftly reminded him of the "lady or the tiger" (which it turns out he'd never read), a story in which the author leaves it up to the either sadistic or super sadistic reader to choose the fate of the main character. so, i ask you, dear reader: do i still have glass in my foot or did we extract it on my desk at work? here's a hint: i'm leaving work right now and going to the gym. then i'm going to watch super troopers. study up kids, there's a quiz on "real genius" tomorrow.
however, let's not hold it against this unknowing little matrix. for most of the day i've been having a grand old time in the world music section. this might also be the only place where you'll go from deep cut rolling stones to nick drake in no moves. rock on.
in more serious news, i had a little minor surgery this morning. two weekends of mosaic-ing a table for the new compy (yes, i am now wild cherry sara, fanboy) left a substantial number of tiny shards of glass all over the floor of the apartment (not to mention xy's feeble, disastrous and pathetic attempt with the nippers, resulting in a single tile shattering into umptillion pieces followed by his feeble, disastrous and pathetic attempt at sweeping it up), one of which (actually two of which) made its way into my dainty little foot. the first was located and removed as swiftly as saddam hussein. #2 proved a little more osama bin laden. so i limped around sunday (to the bocce playoffs, at which we won and then lost and are now out of) and monday (to work, where i complained nearly the entire day to everyone who would listen), unable to work out and catching infinite flack from xy about sitting on the couch with my foot in a basin like an 80-year-old. this morning my concerned co-workers asked about it and i informed them that the damn thing was still in there. they all wanted me to go to the doctor but i'll be damned if i'm gonna mess with four hours of bureaucratic inefficiency and pain for a little sliver of glass. plus, i can't afford the copay. long story still long: we ended up with my foot on the desk and about five people around me, one of which was shoving a (sterilized) needle into my foot. i doubt that i'm really conveying the full weirdness of this situation, but i promise you, having someone poke your foot with a (sterilized) needle while it's sitting on your desk with people you work with is more like something that would happen in one of my lynch-esque dreams than reality, but go figure.
coach dball just pointed out that i forgot to "end" the story. a "denouement" was expected, he said. i swiftly reminded him of the "lady or the tiger" (which it turns out he'd never read), a story in which the author leaves it up to the either sadistic or super sadistic reader to choose the fate of the main character. so, i ask you, dear reader: do i still have glass in my foot or did we extract it on my desk at work? here's a hint: i'm leaving work right now and going to the gym. then i'm going to watch super troopers. study up kids, there's a quiz on "real genius" tomorrow.
22 November 2006
shiny happy N trains holding hands
last night, i was in my usual commuter's daze when something magical happened. a swift, sleek, quieter train came gliding into the station. it was a fascinating new N train. very much like the 4,5,6 and L trains, it's got those blue seats and a map telling you what stops are up next. it's pretty phat. i wonder how long it will take before there are coffee stains on the floor an scratchitti (sp?) all over the place.
happy thanksgiving bor-ers!
happy thanksgiving bor-ers!
kill the headlights and put it in neutral
this past weekend xx and i ventured up to camp guillaume for a weekend of chilly weather, dvds and books. and green bean casserole.
as we were booming along the highway in guillaume's 1986 Honda, the battery light was coming on and going off occasionally. of course, i paid no mind to this because it's an old car and old cars have circuit problems and fuses that blow and lights just go on for no reason. also, guillaume had just had the oil changed, and when i used to have my oil changed, they'd check shit like your battery, and further, every time i went up to 4th gear, the light would go off. so i'd just punch it when the light had been on too long.
we stopped off for some absolute shite chinese food, rented "kiss kiss bang bang", bought four bottles of beaujolais nouveau, and went up to the house.
the next day i hooked up the bomb wifi (with a router on sale for $35, which is now on sale for fucking $10), and did some work whilst xx graded papers and the like. every time the car started, we'd joke about how haha that was lucky. as we came back from grocery shopping saturday evening, though, it seemed our luck had run out. the headlights looked like shitty flashlight beams, the radio died and there was no clock or interior lighting... just as i put the car in park, it gave up.
we spent the rest of the evening panicking (me), drinking (both of us) and watching movies (both of us). here's a line up that makes no sense: American History X and Mean Girls. yes. both of our cell phones were dead so i spent a bit of time imming moms and dads and coach dball about what maybe to do. everyone agreed it was probably the alternator. although dads went on and on about checking the battery cells for sulphuric acid and if they were low, filling them up with water. i still have no plans to ever do something like that.
the next morning we went out to look at the car and see what we could see. (actually, i was gonna do the sulphuric acid thing then, if necessary.) so i got in and tried to start it, just in case. it worked! joy! we drove around a little while and hemmed and hawed about what to do. should we take it to a mechanic? where? is anyone gonna be open on sunday? does anyone even have parts to this car? should we just drive to a train station and leave it there? should we turn the car off whilst we're closing up the house or just leave it running?
in the end, even though we'd planned not to, i shut off the car. it was force of habit!! anyway, we got all our shit together and were on our way.
my hands were adhered to 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, and i rarely dropped below 80mph, afraid that if i went any slower, the engine would just give up. this was especially funny when, at one point, i found myself going 95 and slowed down, only to have an suv shove itself up our butt, so i moved into the right lane. turns out the tailgater was a state trooper apparently not interested in making any money on a sunday. we were sure that if we got pulled over, we'd never get the car going again.
we re-routed ourselves in order to stay mostly on highways, as i feared stop-and-go traffic would be the end of us. then, just outside the toll plaza for the tappan zee (damn you, lack of EZ pass!) bridge, something happened. or, something stopped happening. namely, the car stopped working properly. luckily we were just at an exit. once we stopped at the light, though, that was it. our little honda was over and out.
i threw her in neutral and we pushed the fucker across the street. i was not very helpful in this endeavor because i was laughing so hard...pushing a car is a funny event. of course, the steering wheel locked up, so we couldn't go any direction but straight, which was not the most helpful. anyway, eventually this older, four-toothed black man came by and told me to pop the hood. then he suggested pouring coke on the battery terminals. most people would tell this guy to fuck off, but when you grow up in atlanta, using coke to fix everything ain't that much of a stretch. obviously, though, it didn't work. he also had a smoke in his mouth whilst leaning over the car, which just makes me nervous, but is apparently the sign of someone who knows what they're doing.
the tow truck pulled in a few minutes later and he took us to his shop. Joe Corbett is a nice man. we sat around and waited for him to look for an alternator...they found one! at another shop! we'd be on our way in an hour! 40 minutes later, the guy still hadn't shown up with the part. then someone called... "the neighbor kid saw him wandering around at the other shop. i'm going over there to get it from him". it was at this moment that xx and i decided we needed to get the hell out of there. we left Joe and Mark, his Hungarian counterpart, chainsmoking over the engine of the car and had a stroll around Nyack. it's a cute town. we got some overpriced chocolate.
when we got back, i said to xx, "why is the car in the exact same position as we left it?"...hood still up, still on the jack but not really raised. it did not look fixed. nor did it appear to be in the process of being fixed.
of course the alternator that showed up was the wrong one, it was for a 96, not an 86. very fortunately, there was a bus back to PABT just around the corner. we said "fuck it" and hopped on.
so, when guilaume returns from three weeks of eastern european gallivanting, he will have to go to nyack to pick up his car. ... sorry!
for those of you who like total closure to a story, i just got off the phone with old joe, who said they got the new one on monday and it's all fixed, but not before the first new alternator they got was defective and they had to order another one.
so there you have it. why i prefer to rely on public transportation, which sucks all the time too, rather than sit in mechanic shops on cold sundays and then have to take the bus home anyway.
as we were booming along the highway in guillaume's 1986 Honda, the battery light was coming on and going off occasionally. of course, i paid no mind to this because it's an old car and old cars have circuit problems and fuses that blow and lights just go on for no reason. also, guillaume had just had the oil changed, and when i used to have my oil changed, they'd check shit like your battery, and further, every time i went up to 4th gear, the light would go off. so i'd just punch it when the light had been on too long.
we stopped off for some absolute shite chinese food, rented "kiss kiss bang bang", bought four bottles of beaujolais nouveau, and went up to the house.
the next day i hooked up the bomb wifi (with a router on sale for $35, which is now on sale for fucking $10), and did some work whilst xx graded papers and the like. every time the car started, we'd joke about how haha that was lucky. as we came back from grocery shopping saturday evening, though, it seemed our luck had run out. the headlights looked like shitty flashlight beams, the radio died and there was no clock or interior lighting... just as i put the car in park, it gave up.
we spent the rest of the evening panicking (me), drinking (both of us) and watching movies (both of us). here's a line up that makes no sense: American History X and Mean Girls. yes. both of our cell phones were dead so i spent a bit of time imming moms and dads and coach dball about what maybe to do. everyone agreed it was probably the alternator. although dads went on and on about checking the battery cells for sulphuric acid and if they were low, filling them up with water. i still have no plans to ever do something like that.
the next morning we went out to look at the car and see what we could see. (actually, i was gonna do the sulphuric acid thing then, if necessary.) so i got in and tried to start it, just in case. it worked! joy! we drove around a little while and hemmed and hawed about what to do. should we take it to a mechanic? where? is anyone gonna be open on sunday? does anyone even have parts to this car? should we just drive to a train station and leave it there? should we turn the car off whilst we're closing up the house or just leave it running?
in the end, even though we'd planned not to, i shut off the car. it was force of habit!! anyway, we got all our shit together and were on our way.
my hands were adhered to 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, and i rarely dropped below 80mph, afraid that if i went any slower, the engine would just give up. this was especially funny when, at one point, i found myself going 95 and slowed down, only to have an suv shove itself up our butt, so i moved into the right lane. turns out the tailgater was a state trooper apparently not interested in making any money on a sunday. we were sure that if we got pulled over, we'd never get the car going again.
we re-routed ourselves in order to stay mostly on highways, as i feared stop-and-go traffic would be the end of us. then, just outside the toll plaza for the tappan zee (damn you, lack of EZ pass!) bridge, something happened. or, something stopped happening. namely, the car stopped working properly. luckily we were just at an exit. once we stopped at the light, though, that was it. our little honda was over and out.
i threw her in neutral and we pushed the fucker across the street. i was not very helpful in this endeavor because i was laughing so hard...pushing a car is a funny event. of course, the steering wheel locked up, so we couldn't go any direction but straight, which was not the most helpful. anyway, eventually this older, four-toothed black man came by and told me to pop the hood. then he suggested pouring coke on the battery terminals. most people would tell this guy to fuck off, but when you grow up in atlanta, using coke to fix everything ain't that much of a stretch. obviously, though, it didn't work. he also had a smoke in his mouth whilst leaning over the car, which just makes me nervous, but is apparently the sign of someone who knows what they're doing.
the tow truck pulled in a few minutes later and he took us to his shop. Joe Corbett is a nice man. we sat around and waited for him to look for an alternator...they found one! at another shop! we'd be on our way in an hour! 40 minutes later, the guy still hadn't shown up with the part. then someone called... "the neighbor kid saw him wandering around at the other shop. i'm going over there to get it from him". it was at this moment that xx and i decided we needed to get the hell out of there. we left Joe and Mark, his Hungarian counterpart, chainsmoking over the engine of the car and had a stroll around Nyack. it's a cute town. we got some overpriced chocolate.
when we got back, i said to xx, "why is the car in the exact same position as we left it?"...hood still up, still on the jack but not really raised. it did not look fixed. nor did it appear to be in the process of being fixed.
of course the alternator that showed up was the wrong one, it was for a 96, not an 86. very fortunately, there was a bus back to PABT just around the corner. we said "fuck it" and hopped on.
so, when guilaume returns from three weeks of eastern european gallivanting, he will have to go to nyack to pick up his car. ... sorry!
for those of you who like total closure to a story, i just got off the phone with old joe, who said they got the new one on monday and it's all fixed, but not before the first new alternator they got was defective and they had to order another one.
so there you have it. why i prefer to rely on public transportation, which sucks all the time too, rather than sit in mechanic shops on cold sundays and then have to take the bus home anyway.
10 November 2006
DCFC @ TAMSG OMG
jeez.
ok, very super quickly, i did MI5 assassin for halloween, using the moms's weird old mini-dress and a black wig, and a knife in my boot. it was hot. the maj and i rocked the flavorpill party for a while, long enough to see a band called VIP (who apparently do not exist on the internet). you, whoever you are, need to see these people. they will blow your motherfucking mind. and you will say "why the hell didn't this happen before?". much like you did when You Tube first showed up on the scene. anyway, we left a bit after CSS went on. oh, and this guy hosted the whole thing in a cow outfit. he was off the hook. anyway, we went downtown to some penthouse party where i found a james bond to hang out with. he and his friend wanted to karaoke, so we went to sing sing, but they neglected to tell us that they were sans ID (in their defense, people rarely get carded in the UK), and THEN they tell us that one of them is 19. jesus. obviously we went back to the party and went off our faces.
last friday i took rudolph and west river down to sin-e for the KEXP listener appreciation party (read: free budweiser select (again) until 8). needless to say, we ended up destroyed by free beer and extremely loud music. and oh, god, burger king ROCKS, chris de burgh and all. the poor cats i was catsitting were in for quite a shock when drunk sara came storming through the apartment, spilling food everywhere and falling over whilst emptying the litter box.
saturday i saw Marie Antoinette. look out for the anachronistic chuck taylors in the shoe scene.
sunday, many of us watched many many many other people as they ran down 4th avenue for no apparent reason and then, in celebration of the physical fitness of others, i skipped the gym and made some cinnamon rolls.
sunday night bonnaroo and i went to home-away-from-home union hall and saw the comedy show. i've always harbored a crush on michael showalter, but seeing him live, the smit is for real. what a cutie. he was very funny. eugene was also pretty amusing, the lady who was there was not for me. and david cross gave us his C+ jokes, although i still thought they were funny.
and this brings us to wednesday when snoop majjy maj and i saw ben gibbard & co at the theatre at madison square garden. first off, this shit is fucked up. i have no desire to go back to that place. (except for the jingle ball, but that will be free.) it's like somewhere between "tron" and a shitty casino. however, i do enjoy the sitting aspect. anyway, BG has a very strange stage presence, emphasized by an extremely weird little rock-dance he does through every song, regardless of whether it's appropriate. neither of us were terribly jazzed by their performance, and we missed ted leo + the pharmacists, although we did have the best indian meal available outside india at dimple before hand. anyway, maj made the brilliant observation that seeing them live makes you realize just how produced their albums are. yeah. and also the theatre sucks and EVERYONE (except me and the maj) sang along to that song about his girlfriend dying and him going with her (follow you into the dark or whatever). fucking crazies.
and all of this is my long winded way of showing you what those brilliant yet crazy japanese have come up with now. bag of orange balls!! (boingboing)
ok, very super quickly, i did MI5 assassin for halloween, using the moms's weird old mini-dress and a black wig, and a knife in my boot. it was hot. the maj and i rocked the flavorpill party for a while, long enough to see a band called VIP (who apparently do not exist on the internet). you, whoever you are, need to see these people. they will blow your motherfucking mind. and you will say "why the hell didn't this happen before?". much like you did when You Tube first showed up on the scene. anyway, we left a bit after CSS went on. oh, and this guy hosted the whole thing in a cow outfit. he was off the hook. anyway, we went downtown to some penthouse party where i found a james bond to hang out with. he and his friend wanted to karaoke, so we went to sing sing, but they neglected to tell us that they were sans ID (in their defense, people rarely get carded in the UK), and THEN they tell us that one of them is 19. jesus. obviously we went back to the party and went off our faces.
last friday i took rudolph and west river down to sin-e for the KEXP listener appreciation party (read: free budweiser select (again) until 8). needless to say, we ended up destroyed by free beer and extremely loud music. and oh, god, burger king ROCKS, chris de burgh and all. the poor cats i was catsitting were in for quite a shock when drunk sara came storming through the apartment, spilling food everywhere and falling over whilst emptying the litter box.
saturday i saw Marie Antoinette. look out for the anachronistic chuck taylors in the shoe scene.
sunday, many of us watched many many many other people as they ran down 4th avenue for no apparent reason and then, in celebration of the physical fitness of others, i skipped the gym and made some cinnamon rolls.
sunday night bonnaroo and i went to home-away-from-home union hall and saw the comedy show. i've always harbored a crush on michael showalter, but seeing him live, the smit is for real. what a cutie. he was very funny. eugene was also pretty amusing, the lady who was there was not for me. and david cross gave us his C+ jokes, although i still thought they were funny.
and this brings us to wednesday when snoop majjy maj and i saw ben gibbard & co at the theatre at madison square garden. first off, this shit is fucked up. i have no desire to go back to that place. (except for the jingle ball, but that will be free.) it's like somewhere between "tron" and a shitty casino. however, i do enjoy the sitting aspect. anyway, BG has a very strange stage presence, emphasized by an extremely weird little rock-dance he does through every song, regardless of whether it's appropriate. neither of us were terribly jazzed by their performance, and we missed ted leo + the pharmacists, although we did have the best indian meal available outside india at dimple before hand. anyway, maj made the brilliant observation that seeing them live makes you realize just how produced their albums are. yeah. and also the theatre sucks and EVERYONE (except me and the maj) sang along to that song about his girlfriend dying and him going with her (follow you into the dark or whatever). fucking crazies.
and all of this is my long winded way of showing you what those brilliant yet crazy japanese have come up with now. bag of orange balls!! (boingboing)
27 October 2006
happy news, gig review, sad news
the compy is fixed!! let my life begin again!
maj and i hit union hall for to see oppenheimer open up quick like for some other band. breakfast in NYC really grabbed my attention a while back (thx, lester) and since they were in the hood and on early (and i got my ass on the list) we figured we'd check it out. A+ use of air horn, as well as good stories involving Allen Ginsberg and H. S. Thompson, who by the way, wrote the pilot for Nash Bridges. Betcha didn't know that! anyway, we were all planning to eat at UH after the show, but the place was so damn packed we ditched and went to Rachel's instead. then i watched like 4 episodes of The West Wing, which sucks bc they were the last four. anyone else see Studio 60 this week? when they hired Charlie? jeez, guys, a little creativity wouldn't kill you.
http://www.oppenheimermusic.co.uk/
and in more annoying and dangerous news, we're killing the coral reefs really fucking quickly.
maj and i hit union hall for to see oppenheimer open up quick like for some other band. breakfast in NYC really grabbed my attention a while back (thx, lester) and since they were in the hood and on early (and i got my ass on the list) we figured we'd check it out. A+ use of air horn, as well as good stories involving Allen Ginsberg and H. S. Thompson, who by the way, wrote the pilot for Nash Bridges. Betcha didn't know that! anyway, we were all planning to eat at UH after the show, but the place was so damn packed we ditched and went to Rachel's instead. then i watched like 4 episodes of The West Wing, which sucks bc they were the last four. anyone else see Studio 60 this week? when they hired Charlie? jeez, guys, a little creativity wouldn't kill you.
http://www.oppenheimermusic.co.uk/
and in more annoying and dangerous news, we're killing the coral reefs really fucking quickly.
26 October 2006
fix more mistakes
lifehacker just enlightened me to the fact that you can Undo a "closed tab" on firefox. i am forever closing the wrong tab or just being stupid, so this is wicked useful: ctrl+shift+T.
24 October 2006
pixies tired of being pixies cover band
pfork has the scoop on the nme announcement that the pixies are gonna record a new album.
will it suck ass? mm, probably
will i buy it the nanosecond it's released anyway? yep.
will it suck ass? mm, probably
will i buy it the nanosecond it's released anyway? yep.
oh snap
you know how i'm always starting out saying something and then ending up somewhere else, only to have it all make sense later? or not? bear with me here.
i am super excited because my megacheap supersize ext. hard drive arrived today. this little bitch is tiny. heavy, though. it's been hell these last few weeks without a compy at home, and i'm hoping the IT dude at work is finished making it all better.
so this weekend was another lovely adventure up to camp guillaume. i might rename camp guillaume camp sit-on-the-couch-listening-to-REM-and-getting-stoned-and-drinking-scotch, because that's about all that went down this weekend. literally, i was on the couch from 11 am until 330pm saturday. i haven't done that shit since college, at least not if i'm not hungover. anyhoo, we drove around a little and saw ye olde woodstock site. it's just a big lawn, no evidence (well a wooden sign) of its hippie-laden past. a delicious new york strip steak was had at "friends" pub. as well as a dessert called 'sex in a bowl', which did not come in a bowl, and while indulgent and delicious, it still has a ways before catching up with its namesake.
on the way up, we were discussing SUVs and how much we hate them. or rather, the other people in the car were. i tend to agree that they're a waste of practically everything, but i was certainly not quite as venom-filled about it as some of my cohorts. anyway, a giant suburban passed us and the guy driving it looked over and shook his head all "tsk tsk" like. and i'm thinking "what the fuck is up his ass?" i'd just tossed a butt out the window, which i know i shouldn't do, but, well, i recycle manuscripts, so it's OK; so i thought maybe it was that. then i realized we had one of those "i do support the right to marry" bumper stickers. so i bet that motherfucker was all against the gayness of the car. or the supportive of gayness in the car. so there he was in his giant SUV that we were all bitching about, and he's shaking his head disdainfully at us. nobody won that round.
the most exciting part of the weekend was upon arrival, we would finally get a chance to check out the bear damage. you might remember guillaume emailed me last week and was all "a bear mauled the porch". of course, in the interim, a tree had fallen as well, so camp guillaume was starting to look pretty ghetto. trees falling, trash strewn everywhere (c/o the bear), screens to' up. and that was the best part... there was a nice piece of screen that had some rad claw marks from where le ours tried to get through the screen. i took lots of pictures of it. i'll post them sometime soon.
why not now, you ask? because my computer is still broken and i haven't loaded anything onto my new ext hard dizzy.
i am super excited because my megacheap supersize ext. hard drive arrived today. this little bitch is tiny. heavy, though. it's been hell these last few weeks without a compy at home, and i'm hoping the IT dude at work is finished making it all better.
so this weekend was another lovely adventure up to camp guillaume. i might rename camp guillaume camp sit-on-the-couch-listening-to-REM-and-getting-stoned-and-drinking-scotch, because that's about all that went down this weekend. literally, i was on the couch from 11 am until 330pm saturday. i haven't done that shit since college, at least not if i'm not hungover. anyhoo, we drove around a little and saw ye olde woodstock site. it's just a big lawn, no evidence (well a wooden sign) of its hippie-laden past. a delicious new york strip steak was had at "friends" pub. as well as a dessert called 'sex in a bowl', which did not come in a bowl, and while indulgent and delicious, it still has a ways before catching up with its namesake.
on the way up, we were discussing SUVs and how much we hate them. or rather, the other people in the car were. i tend to agree that they're a waste of practically everything, but i was certainly not quite as venom-filled about it as some of my cohorts. anyway, a giant suburban passed us and the guy driving it looked over and shook his head all "tsk tsk" like. and i'm thinking "what the fuck is up his ass?" i'd just tossed a butt out the window, which i know i shouldn't do, but, well, i recycle manuscripts, so it's OK; so i thought maybe it was that. then i realized we had one of those "i do support the right to marry" bumper stickers. so i bet that motherfucker was all against the gayness of the car. or the supportive of gayness in the car. so there he was in his giant SUV that we were all bitching about, and he's shaking his head disdainfully at us. nobody won that round.
the most exciting part of the weekend was upon arrival, we would finally get a chance to check out the bear damage. you might remember guillaume emailed me last week and was all "a bear mauled the porch". of course, in the interim, a tree had fallen as well, so camp guillaume was starting to look pretty ghetto. trees falling, trash strewn everywhere (c/o the bear), screens to' up. and that was the best part... there was a nice piece of screen that had some rad claw marks from where le ours tried to get through the screen. i took lots of pictures of it. i'll post them sometime soon.
why not now, you ask? because my computer is still broken and i haven't loaded anything onto my new ext hard dizzy.
20 October 2006
19 October 2006
and don't criticize what you can't understand
watch me.
the maj got a fancy new job that gives her free tickets to some b'way shows. the other night at bocce (we won!), she's all "wanna go see 'the times they are a-changin'?'" (look at all that punctuation!) at first i was thinking, "hell no," but then i figured i might as well see just how bad something like this can be.
first and best about the evening, we had some rad vietnamese for dinner. i don't remember the name of the place but it was on the south side of 47th, i think, between 7th and 8th ave. (Maj, do you remember?) if any of you have been lucky enough to have north-east-indian-chinese food, the sauteed singapore noodles are the way to go. they got the good-style hot sauce too. skip the spring rolls. the ice cream looked awesome, but we had to jet.
so on to the theatre. iforget where it played, it was at the Brooks Atkinson, but it was a really nice theatre, except for how they covered up all the detail of the room with those giant lighting racks. blech.
so the whole concept, can you BELIEVE how trite and stupid this is? the setting is 'somewhere between awake and asleep', the whole shit is based around a circus where 'the clowns want to live their lives', god almighty, how did this get greenlit?
it was as bad as i'd anticipated if not worse. they turned "just like a woman" into a duet, and "mr. tambourine man" involved the main character descending from above sitting on the fucking crescent moon and a stupid-ass clown dancing around below. "knockin' on heaven's door" was all flashlights and guys in black (it sort of reminded me of that part in the movie ghost where all the evil spirits came) dancing around the old dude who is ostensibly dying.
oh, it was god awful. do not go see it. don't let anyone you know go see it. ever. stay home, smoke some weed, have a beer and listen to your dylan records. you will have a much better time.
so on a completely unrelated note, rudolph just told me his sister drank her contact lenses (she was on a b-trip and stuck them in a glass b/c she didn't have the holder thingy); and moments later guillaume told me a bear attacked camp guillaume. just so you know.
the maj got a fancy new job that gives her free tickets to some b'way shows. the other night at bocce (we won!), she's all "wanna go see 'the times they are a-changin'?'" (look at all that punctuation!) at first i was thinking, "hell no," but then i figured i might as well see just how bad something like this can be.
first and best about the evening, we had some rad vietnamese for dinner. i don't remember the name of the place but it was on the south side of 47th, i think, between 7th and 8th ave. (Maj, do you remember?) if any of you have been lucky enough to have north-east-indian-chinese food, the sauteed singapore noodles are the way to go. they got the good-style hot sauce too. skip the spring rolls. the ice cream looked awesome, but we had to jet.
so on to the theatre. i
so the whole concept, can you BELIEVE how trite and stupid this is? the setting is 'somewhere between awake and asleep', the whole shit is based around a circus where 'the clowns want to live their lives', god almighty, how did this get greenlit?
it was as bad as i'd anticipated if not worse. they turned "just like a woman" into a duet, and "mr. tambourine man" involved the main character descending from above sitting on the fucking crescent moon and a stupid-ass clown dancing around below. "knockin' on heaven's door" was all flashlights and guys in black (it sort of reminded me of that part in the movie ghost where all the evil spirits came) dancing around the old dude who is ostensibly dying.
oh, it was god awful. do not go see it. don't let anyone you know go see it. ever. stay home, smoke some weed, have a beer and listen to your dylan records. you will have a much better time.
so on a completely unrelated note, rudolph just told me his sister drank her contact lenses (she was on a b-trip and stuck them in a glass b/c she didn't have the holder thingy); and moments later guillaume told me a bear attacked camp guillaume. just so you know.
18 October 2006
i'm pretty sure i'm the last person with internet access to see this
but if you haven't either, it really is worth a look
i especially enjoy the part where it looks like they're skating.
OK Go treadmills
i especially enjoy the part where it looks like they're skating.
OK Go treadmills
11 October 2006
ready for a funeral
when someone dies, some of us decide to go to work the next day, because what else are you going to do. but then people come up and ask you to do shit and you want to scream at them "don't you know someone just died!?" but they don't know, neccessarily. and you realize you shouldn't have come to work, you should've stayed home and continued to stare blankly at the wall trying to remember the last thing you said to your uncle.
you think about the relationship you had. the things that made him him vs. everyone else. his gruff demeanor that scared the shit out of you as a little girl but that you later came to realize was all a big act to hide the fact that he was one of the biggest pushovers on the planet. how he took you out on his harley and told you story upon story of riding all over the country on it. how every time you went on a trip, you got him a t-shirt from the harley store. how he made you a mix cd every time you went to visit. how he made the absolute best turkey stuffing, putting an absurd and glorious amount of butter in. how he listened to a short-wave police radio when he napped. how he was always trying to get you to watch movies you thought sucked. how he loved his dogs and hated his wife's cats (but really he loved them, too). how he helped you buy your first laptop. how he forced you to re-write your resume and buy nice paper to print it on. how, upon seeing you emerge from the pool as a little girl, he said "you're all wet!" and thus a nickname was born. how he brought you a weed magazine back from his recent trip to amsterdam and went through it with you, commenting. how you would go to the gym together and he would explain his entire, intricate workout. his navy tattoos. how he quit smoking after his first heart attack. his siatica. how he bought you your toolkit and tried to talk you into getting a 145-piece socket wrench set that you clearly had no use for. how he would always grill you a steak because you and he were the only ones in the house who could really appreciate it. how he would explain how to grill a steak. how he took you up to his hunting camp and told you the whole story of what is your favorite fireplace. how he died exactly like the violinist on Gray's Anatomy and how weirdly you keep focusing on that because it's the only thing as absurd as the idea that you'll never see him again.
you think about the relationship you had. the things that made him him vs. everyone else. his gruff demeanor that scared the shit out of you as a little girl but that you later came to realize was all a big act to hide the fact that he was one of the biggest pushovers on the planet. how he took you out on his harley and told you story upon story of riding all over the country on it. how every time you went on a trip, you got him a t-shirt from the harley store. how he made you a mix cd every time you went to visit. how he made the absolute best turkey stuffing, putting an absurd and glorious amount of butter in. how he listened to a short-wave police radio when he napped. how he was always trying to get you to watch movies you thought sucked. how he loved his dogs and hated his wife's cats (but really he loved them, too). how he helped you buy your first laptop. how he forced you to re-write your resume and buy nice paper to print it on. how, upon seeing you emerge from the pool as a little girl, he said "you're all wet!" and thus a nickname was born. how he brought you a weed magazine back from his recent trip to amsterdam and went through it with you, commenting. how you would go to the gym together and he would explain his entire, intricate workout. his navy tattoos. how he quit smoking after his first heart attack. his siatica. how he bought you your toolkit and tried to talk you into getting a 145-piece socket wrench set that you clearly had no use for. how he would always grill you a steak because you and he were the only ones in the house who could really appreciate it. how he would explain how to grill a steak. how he took you up to his hunting camp and told you the whole story of what is your favorite fireplace. how he died exactly like the violinist on Gray's Anatomy and how weirdly you keep focusing on that because it's the only thing as absurd as the idea that you'll never see him again.
05 October 2006
try not to cry for too long
rudolph just emailed me this at work. cheeky bastard
There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too
And up in the nursery an absurd little bird
Is popping out to say "cuckoo"
[Marta, Gretl, Brigitta:]
Cuckoo, cuckoo
[Children: Marta, Gretl, Brigitta: ]
Regretfully they tell us Cuckoo, cuckoo
But firmly they compel us Cuckoo, cuckoo
To say goodbye . . .
[Marta, Gretl, Brigitta:]
Cuckoo!
[Children:]
. . . to you
[Children:]
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night
[Marta:]
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight
[Children:]
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu
[Friedrich:]
Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu
[Children:]
So long, farewell, au revoir, auf wiedersehen
[Liesl:]
I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne
[Children:]
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
[Kurt:]
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye -- Goodbye!
[Brigitta:]
I'm glad to go, I cannot tell a lie
[Louisa:]
I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly
[Gretl:]
The sun has gone to bed and so must I
[Children:]
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
[Guests:]
Goodbye!
There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too
And up in the nursery an absurd little bird
Is popping out to say "cuckoo"
[Marta, Gretl, Brigitta:]
Cuckoo, cuckoo
[Children: Marta, Gretl, Brigitta: ]
Regretfully they tell us Cuckoo, cuckoo
But firmly they compel us Cuckoo, cuckoo
To say goodbye . . .
[Marta, Gretl, Brigitta:]
Cuckoo!
[Children:]
. . . to you
[Children:]
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night
[Marta:]
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight
[Children:]
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu
[Friedrich:]
Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu
[Children:]
So long, farewell, au revoir, auf wiedersehen
[Liesl:]
I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne
[Children:]
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
[Kurt:]
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye -- Goodbye!
[Brigitta:]
I'm glad to go, I cannot tell a lie
[Louisa:]
I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly
[Gretl:]
The sun has gone to bed and so must I
[Children:]
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
[Guests:]
Goodbye!
indie rock nostalgia night
As part of our WCS HS Reunion week here at BOR, i took the maj deegan (actually it was a b-day pressie for her) to see Built to Spill last night at sucky Irving Plaza. (look at all my capital letters today!)
Camper van Beethoven opened, and they were really on it. They managed to play a whole lot of songs I didn't know, but I only have one album, so that is to be expected. It was a real treat for me though, and they had some hysterical graphics, including, "thank you seattle. you're too kind"(sic). All in all, a band I'd suggest you get out there and see. Well-paired with BtS, as well.
We've seen indie-rock gods BtS a couple of times, or maybe once, but it was a long show. But once again, they came out and rocked the shit out of a more aged than usual audience. Someone at the show had some Really. Good. Weed. I also saw my HS actor-crush for the second time in a few months, we had a cigarette at the same time. It's weird to have a big ass crush on an actor through HS and then run into him when you're in your late twenties...we're like buddies now. Not at all. Anyway, I'd go through the setlist, but for some odd reason, I don't know any BtS songs by name. It was damn good, though. They are a very good live band. We are old and tired and left before the encore.
Also, Magno Martini at Spice = super awesome. Maj thinks the upstairs lounge at revival looks like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and I'm ready to agree with that statement. And since I forgot to mention it, Christine Fellows (i think), who opened for The Mountain Goats Saturday, is like a bad version of Jenny Lewis and has lyrics like "boys lined up like beer cans". How fucked up is that Foley shit? He gives gays a bad fucking name. Jerk.
So tonight I fly the ghetto (read: air tran) skies down to the ATL. Lester is making me and canton and mountaineermaid some sort of tasting menu at his fancy restaurant friday and then carson had to go get knocked up and we'll all be celebrating that saturday afternoon, followed by the main event saturday night, followed by a massive hangover/midlife crisis sunday and return to new york just in time for the WYB!! season opener bocce game on monday. Tuesday=fucking naptime.
Camper van Beethoven opened, and they were really on it. They managed to play a whole lot of songs I didn't know, but I only have one album, so that is to be expected. It was a real treat for me though, and they had some hysterical graphics, including, "thank you seattle. you're too kind"(sic). All in all, a band I'd suggest you get out there and see. Well-paired with BtS, as well.
We've seen indie-rock gods BtS a couple of times, or maybe once, but it was a long show. But once again, they came out and rocked the shit out of a more aged than usual audience. Someone at the show had some Really. Good. Weed. I also saw my HS actor-crush for the second time in a few months, we had a cigarette at the same time. It's weird to have a big ass crush on an actor through HS and then run into him when you're in your late twenties...we're like buddies now. Not at all. Anyway, I'd go through the setlist, but for some odd reason, I don't know any BtS songs by name. It was damn good, though. They are a very good live band. We are old and tired and left before the encore.
Also, Magno Martini at Spice = super awesome. Maj thinks the upstairs lounge at revival looks like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and I'm ready to agree with that statement. And since I forgot to mention it, Christine Fellows (i think), who opened for The Mountain Goats Saturday, is like a bad version of Jenny Lewis and has lyrics like "boys lined up like beer cans". How fucked up is that Foley shit? He gives gays a bad fucking name. Jerk.
So tonight I fly the ghetto (read: air tran) skies down to the ATL. Lester is making me and canton and mountaineermaid some sort of tasting menu at his fancy restaurant friday and then carson had to go get knocked up and we'll all be celebrating that saturday afternoon, followed by the main event saturday night, followed by a massive hangover/midlife crisis sunday and return to new york just in time for the WYB!! season opener bocce game on monday. Tuesday=fucking naptime.
04 October 2006
booyakasha
did i spell that right? i don't give a fuck, b/c the moms just imed me and said this:
wild cherry moms: OK We Are booked at Gomboa Resort for 12/28-1/1.
happy panamanian new year!!
ariel tram!!
wild cherry moms: OK We Are booked at Gomboa Resort for 12/28-1/1.
happy panamanian new year!!
ariel tram!!
03 October 2006
tonight, on a very special "bag of rocks"
I just found out that my company plans on saving us in the event of disaster, after seeing two huge boxes of such in the kitchen, by feeding us chocolate peanut butter "balance" bars. luckily, since we've averted said disaster, we can reap the benefits of the impending expiry of said balance bars and eat them. i've had four today. i am fucking balanced.
this weekend was a whilrwind of activity.
the maj got all 26 on our asses. i brought her 26 balloons. she loved that. it's fun to be the one attached to 26 balloons in a bar. schwags, as though reading my mind, brought a table cloth and some banners that said, rightfully, "happy birthday". it was old skizzy. among normal gifts, n'orleans gave the maj some sort of voice activated barking dog thingy that is, in a word, hideous, and craigslist, in a surprise visit, gave our lovely vegetarian birthday girl some leftover chicken pad thai. good work, that was.
i to lady in 99c store: can you blow up 26 balloons?
lady in 99c store: now?
saturday was coach dballs' birthday extravaganza. an extremely slow vietnamese sandwich made majjy maj and me late for the pre-movie drinks, but thanks to certain other attendees, we were fixed up with tall boys in the movie. i have NEVER come that close to pissing myself. the movie was plenty funny and then we headed over to professor thom's for a few breers. they played a lot of songs that reminded me of high school, which reminds me, this is Wild Cherry Sara's remeniscient high school week in honor of my 10th hs reunion coming up this very saturday. woo! i did not get fat!!! or married!! or pregnant! we're celebrating by doing things like finding '80s music, which, while not from my own high school era does remind me of that fake hs experience i should have had where the hot guy totally wanted me even though i was kind of a freakish weirdo who wore giant grateful dead t-shirts. we're also watching a lot of "freaks & geeks" on dvd. mostly we're wishing we weren't going. although i can't wait to talk to a classmate who recently myspaced me and under "heros" in his profile it says, amongst others, "whoever invented cheese". we're gonna have a good time.
so i left PT's to hit bowery ballroom with west river and se los mountain goats. john darnielle (did i spell that right?) is wicked funny and very down to earth. they played a pretty well-rounded set, although i did not hear my all time favorite MG's song, "cubs in 5", which made me sad. but he did play "dance music" which made me as happy as one can get whilst still listening to the song "dance music".
after the show, i walked back uptown and re-met up with the coach dball birthday crew at sing sing. it's never a good sign when you're at sing sing before 1am. acutally, it's rarely a good sign when you're at sing sing after 1am, either. after that, for no good reason whatsoever, most of us cabbed it over to the magician, where even those of us who were trying our damndest to pace ourselves realized we were shitfaced and it was time to go home. only an hour or so after last call though.
what's even better is that when i came home at ?:?? am, i checked on my ailing computer. something had gone awry last time i used it and i was curious to see if re-installing itunes had fixed the problem, as i was sure it would. the answer, sadly, was no. i sat up looking at what was left of my computer, a sad screen consisting only of, "missing operating system" for about 15 minutes before finally giving up on help.
things only got better from there, i had to come into the bloody office to do my freelancing because clearly i can't do it on a computer with a missing operating system. so i spent two hours of a sunday at my office. yes!
why is it when we have all three netflix in the house and a bunch of shit on the dvr none of us are around and it all sits there until we decide to erase/send them all back and when i'm sitting home on a sunday now that gray's anatomy is gone and i can't go out because it's erev yom kippur there's nothing at all to watch? why!?
obviously, i spent yesterday not eating, but also not working, which was a pretty fair trade.
i better get started on racking up some sins for this year.
i totally forgot to mention that i had an interview that i completely forgot about until about 1 hour prior. needless to say, i pretty much nailed it.
this weekend was a whilrwind of activity.
the maj got all 26 on our asses. i brought her 26 balloons. she loved that. it's fun to be the one attached to 26 balloons in a bar. schwags, as though reading my mind, brought a table cloth and some banners that said, rightfully, "happy birthday". it was old skizzy. among normal gifts, n'orleans gave the maj some sort of voice activated barking dog thingy that is, in a word, hideous, and craigslist, in a surprise visit, gave our lovely vegetarian birthday girl some leftover chicken pad thai. good work, that was.
i to lady in 99c store: can you blow up 26 balloons?
lady in 99c store: now?
saturday was coach dballs' birthday extravaganza. an extremely slow vietnamese sandwich made majjy maj and me late for the pre-movie drinks, but thanks to certain other attendees, we were fixed up with tall boys in the movie. i have NEVER come that close to pissing myself. the movie was plenty funny and then we headed over to professor thom's for a few breers. they played a lot of songs that reminded me of high school, which reminds me, this is Wild Cherry Sara's remeniscient high school week in honor of my 10th hs reunion coming up this very saturday. woo! i did not get fat!!! or married!! or pregnant! we're celebrating by doing things like finding '80s music, which, while not from my own high school era does remind me of that fake hs experience i should have had where the hot guy totally wanted me even though i was kind of a freakish weirdo who wore giant grateful dead t-shirts. we're also watching a lot of "freaks & geeks" on dvd. mostly we're wishing we weren't going. although i can't wait to talk to a classmate who recently myspaced me and under "heros" in his profile it says, amongst others, "whoever invented cheese". we're gonna have a good time.
so i left PT's to hit bowery ballroom with west river and se los mountain goats. john darnielle (did i spell that right?) is wicked funny and very down to earth. they played a pretty well-rounded set, although i did not hear my all time favorite MG's song, "cubs in 5", which made me sad. but he did play "dance music" which made me as happy as one can get whilst still listening to the song "dance music".
after the show, i walked back uptown and re-met up with the coach dball birthday crew at sing sing. it's never a good sign when you're at sing sing before 1am. acutally, it's rarely a good sign when you're at sing sing after 1am, either. after that, for no good reason whatsoever, most of us cabbed it over to the magician, where even those of us who were trying our damndest to pace ourselves realized we were shitfaced and it was time to go home. only an hour or so after last call though.
what's even better is that when i came home at ?:?? am, i checked on my ailing computer. something had gone awry last time i used it and i was curious to see if re-installing itunes had fixed the problem, as i was sure it would. the answer, sadly, was no. i sat up looking at what was left of my computer, a sad screen consisting only of, "missing operating system" for about 15 minutes before finally giving up on help.
things only got better from there, i had to come into the bloody office to do my freelancing because clearly i can't do it on a computer with a missing operating system. so i spent two hours of a sunday at my office. yes!
why is it when we have all three netflix in the house and a bunch of shit on the dvr none of us are around and it all sits there until we decide to erase/send them all back and when i'm sitting home on a sunday now that gray's anatomy is gone and i can't go out because it's erev yom kippur there's nothing at all to watch? why!?
obviously, i spent yesterday not eating, but also not working, which was a pretty fair trade.
i better get started on racking up some sins for this year.
i totally forgot to mention that i had an interview that i completely forgot about until about 1 hour prior. needless to say, i pretty much nailed it.
28 September 2006
the best thing to ever happen ever
so, i just got a new 'pod. i call it elefant because it's gigantic. 80GB of storage. that's twice the size of my piddly laptop's hard drive...it's a video, which i never saw the point of. but now, thanks to magic or fate or just pure dumb luck, my vast wasteland of disk space will soon be filling up with the greatest comedy show of all time ever in the world...
the state.
the first season is now available on itunes.
rejoice!! now!
the state.
the first season is now available on itunes.
rejoice!! now!
25 September 2006
i'm going as a JW for halloween
Son: Daddy, what's that?
Father: That's the Watchtower.
Son: What do they do there?
Father: That's where they teach people how to ring doorbells.
--B train, Manhattan Bridge
ONY
had a lovely weekend at camp guillaume. we celebrated the yid new year with the hasids in the 'skillz. bonjour, brooklyn brewery Ocktoberfest! bienvenue! thanks for getting us all drunk, along with whatever that other beer was, saturday night. pics of leaves changing? maybe.
also, Lambchop at bowery busts its way into my top three gigs ever. maybe four. wow. but they managed to take the win as the lowest ever attendance at bowery ballroom. including west river and me walking in just before the opener and seeing no more than 15 people in the whole place (except, of course, the tables upstairs. those fuckers got there super early). it's very sad that so few people were at the show, but having space and quiet during a gig was certainly welcome.
i'd say there are generally two mindsets for gigging: you're either going to see a band you know well & love hoping it will be the louder, clearer, louder, better, funnier, louder, somehow more transcendent (yes, wr I used that word) version of the albums you've been listening to, OR you go to check out a band you've heard here and there who happen to be in town so what the fuck, you haven't got anything better to do--is there anything better to do than go to a gig? doubtful.
anyhoo, Lambchop was the textbook example of all the hopes and dreams of scenario 1 coming true. 12 or so peeps on stage, including a string quartet and everyone on top of thier game, not to mention (finally) a very respectful crowd, who cheered, danced, and shut the fuck up when it was called for. go, lambchop, go!
Father: That's the Watchtower.
Son: What do they do there?
Father: That's where they teach people how to ring doorbells.
--B train, Manhattan Bridge
ONY
had a lovely weekend at camp guillaume. we celebrated the yid new year with the hasids in the 'skillz. bonjour, brooklyn brewery Ocktoberfest! bienvenue! thanks for getting us all drunk, along with whatever that other beer was, saturday night. pics of leaves changing? maybe.
also, Lambchop at bowery busts its way into my top three gigs ever. maybe four. wow. but they managed to take the win as the lowest ever attendance at bowery ballroom. including west river and me walking in just before the opener and seeing no more than 15 people in the whole place (except, of course, the tables upstairs. those fuckers got there super early). it's very sad that so few people were at the show, but having space and quiet during a gig was certainly welcome.
i'd say there are generally two mindsets for gigging: you're either going to see a band you know well & love hoping it will be the louder, clearer, louder, better, funnier, louder, somehow more transcendent (yes, wr I used that word) version of the albums you've been listening to, OR you go to check out a band you've heard here and there who happen to be in town so what the fuck, you haven't got anything better to do--is there anything better to do than go to a gig? doubtful.
anyhoo, Lambchop was the textbook example of all the hopes and dreams of scenario 1 coming true. 12 or so peeps on stage, including a string quartet and everyone on top of thier game, not to mention (finally) a very respectful crowd, who cheered, danced, and shut the fuck up when it was called for. go, lambchop, go!
15 September 2006
you get me through my current occupation
i think it's pretty well established that i LOVE devotchka. I saw Little Miss Sunshine because they did the music (liked it a lot as well!), i saw them back in june or something and i went back into manhattan at 1130pm last friday to see them at midnight at spiegeltent.
so surely you wonder if this was worth it? yes. yes it was.
because not only were the awesome and play loads of loviliness, they had an aerialist:
so surely you wonder if this was worth it? yes. yes it was.
because not only were the awesome and play loads of loviliness, they had an aerialist:
11 September 2006
11
:(
here's a very interesting recap from teendrama, with photos (be sure to click on the link at the bottom).
i lived in atlanta and saw most of it go down on telly. it was mind boggling to wrap my head around how someone crashed planes into buildings, not to mention how strong the buldings were, and their size, since the planes didn't go right through them and they stood standing for a while. then i freaked out even harder because i'd had a dream i was in the world trade center looking out and there was smoke coming from below me and then the whole floor i was on started falling a few days beforehand.
here's a very interesting recap from teendrama, with photos (be sure to click on the link at the bottom).
i lived in atlanta and saw most of it go down on telly. it was mind boggling to wrap my head around how someone crashed planes into buildings, not to mention how strong the buldings were, and their size, since the planes didn't go right through them and they stood standing for a while. then i freaked out even harder because i'd had a dream i was in the world trade center looking out and there was smoke coming from below me and then the whole floor i was on started falling a few days beforehand.
digression, digression, point
so i just had HALF of a SMALL (or grande or whatever) mocha (not from *bucks) and i'm pretty amped. i absolutely cannot hold my caffeine. i just walked into the boss's office and spouted off a stream of words even i didn't understand, closing with "i just had a cup of coffee and i'm really hyper, sorry", so part of why i find this so hysterical might be because i can't even type without hitting two keys at a time right now.
while i define myself as a smoker, i rarely smoke during the day. but when i do, i take rudolph with me because he does. i cheated this morning and just a few minutes ago he came by my desk to see if i wanted to go again, i looked at him with my caffeinated eyes and said "no thanks, gottafinishredliningthiscausewehavetosenditouttodaybecausetheauthor
isallmadit'stakingthislong" so moments ago i got this email from him:
I just saw Dan Rather come in our building. I wonder if he’s meeting someone here. See what happens when you don’t smoke, you miss DAN RATHER.
ps i think all the jonathan swift i'm reading is rubbing off.
while i define myself as a smoker, i rarely smoke during the day. but when i do, i take rudolph with me because he does. i cheated this morning and just a few minutes ago he came by my desk to see if i wanted to go again, i looked at him with my caffeinated eyes and said "no thanks, gottafinishredliningthiscausewehavetosenditouttodaybecausetheauthor
isallmadit'stakingthislong" so moments ago i got this email from him:
I just saw Dan Rather come in our building. I wonder if he’s meeting someone here. See what happens when you don’t smoke, you miss DAN RATHER.
ps i think all the jonathan swift i'm reading is rubbing off.
08 September 2006
sometimes it looks like we might just be OK
05 September 2006
two weekends in one
not only did we have some seriously divergent weather patterns this weekend, but i managed to get two weekends for the price of one by spending thursday, friday and most of saturday at camp guillaume and kicking it bk style sunday and monday.
thursday evening got off to a rousing start as rudolph and i left the office to walk to PABT and Penn Station, respectively. of course, this sort of required going through the Radio City Music Hall area, where googols of sad-sack teenagers were waiting to go inside and cheer about bands that suck and the imagination-lacking videos they use to burn into viewers' subconscious. more to the point, i said to randolph how my 16-year-old self would have probably shit bricks to get into something like that and now here i am walking past it at a jaded 28 thinking everyone involved with the VMAs is beyond pathetic. i don't even know who was nominated so that could be a total lie. either way, they were blocking up the sidewalk and that was annoying. and MTV blows.
what was awesome was when we finally emerged from the vma holding pen, we were in Times Fucking Square. i was pretty sure i was moving through the circles of hell; i was waiting for phlegyas to show up and offer me a ride. rudolph took off for jersey and i went into penn to find guillaume for the 6:57 train to port jervis, via secaucus junction. meeting people at train stations is fun and simple. especially when njtransit has two "ticketing areas" with "waiting areas" right the fuck next to them and you are on the phone with guillaume, patience waning, screaming, "i'm in the ticketing area and i don't see you, you must be in a different ticketing area". finally i decided it would be easier to just meet on the platform, which eventually worked out.
guillaume bought this cute little cabin in bethel, new york. bethel is in the catskills, which is a mountain range and which, like many other mountain ranges, tends to be quite a bit cooler than the surrounding lands. i was not informed of the fact that the heating oil man was not meant to show up until friday morning before we left. meaning that we were heatless for thursday night. obviously this isn't normally a problem in august, but since mother nature decided to smack us upside the head this weekend, it was a pretty serious issue. not only that, but the cracked out people who sold guillaume the house had kindly left the matresses there, but they'd never taken the plastic off. so i slept on a mattress in a plastic bag with one sheet over me. maybe it was the poor quality of the previous night's sleep or my unending generosity, but friday morning i was up and at 'em on the way to home depot for a grill and then on to wal mart for some flannel sheets and comforters and other homey items on which i spent entirely too much money.
some of you may be aware that the catskills were once known as the "borscht belt", a lot of hasids still hang out at decrepit camps in the area and there was no shortage of them when i went on my excursion. still, it's weird to see loads of them roaming around home depot, and odder still, wal mart. it was hard enough for me to simply be in a wal mart, but a wal mart full of hasid families was almost too much. because i like any sport involving a lawn and not much skill, i wandered into the "sporting goods" (read: guns and camo-everything) aisle. i saw a dude buy a gun. i heard another dude (none of these people were curly-cues, by the way) arguing with the gun man about the mandatory waiting period. i walked up to the gun counter and asked if they sold horseshoe games. they were out for the season.
i got back to the house and the heat, propane and cable had been hooked up so i hopped online and did a little work and then got to work grilling the steaks i'd imported from fairway. i bought some lovely hickory chunks which did not abide my impatience and eventually got covered in charcoal. it was a delightful dinner, after which we got insanely baked and watched harold & kumar go to white castle. the next morning i whipped up some chocolate chip scones and strawberries and cream. not healthy in any way, but fantastically delicious.
spent most of saturday travelling through the drizzle of upstate new york and new jersey to the drizzle of brooklyn. luckily, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy had arrived via netflix. sunday xx and i went to atlantic center. why the hell does it always look like there's about to be a national emergency at target? entire aisles are devoid of product every time i go there.
we hopped up to the maj's who threw a bbq in honor of summer ending and her brother's visit to ny. this event ended in us all being so fucked up that we started throwing any flammable item within reach into the grill. monday was all about productive. i finally finished editing a friend's manuscript in the park and then xx and i met the maj and brother deegan (and briefly lucy) at lovely union hall, where we played some fantastic bocce.
and now here i am, at work. boo.
thursday evening got off to a rousing start as rudolph and i left the office to walk to PABT and Penn Station, respectively. of course, this sort of required going through the Radio City Music Hall area, where googols of sad-sack teenagers were waiting to go inside and cheer about bands that suck and the imagination-lacking videos they use to burn into viewers' subconscious. more to the point, i said to randolph how my 16-year-old self would have probably shit bricks to get into something like that and now here i am walking past it at a jaded 28 thinking everyone involved with the VMAs is beyond pathetic. i don't even know who was nominated so that could be a total lie. either way, they were blocking up the sidewalk and that was annoying. and MTV blows.
what was awesome was when we finally emerged from the vma holding pen, we were in Times Fucking Square. i was pretty sure i was moving through the circles of hell; i was waiting for phlegyas to show up and offer me a ride. rudolph took off for jersey and i went into penn to find guillaume for the 6:57 train to port jervis, via secaucus junction. meeting people at train stations is fun and simple. especially when njtransit has two "ticketing areas" with "waiting areas" right the fuck next to them and you are on the phone with guillaume, patience waning, screaming, "i'm in the ticketing area and i don't see you, you must be in a different ticketing area". finally i decided it would be easier to just meet on the platform, which eventually worked out.
guillaume bought this cute little cabin in bethel, new york. bethel is in the catskills, which is a mountain range and which, like many other mountain ranges, tends to be quite a bit cooler than the surrounding lands. i was not informed of the fact that the heating oil man was not meant to show up until friday morning before we left. meaning that we were heatless for thursday night. obviously this isn't normally a problem in august, but since mother nature decided to smack us upside the head this weekend, it was a pretty serious issue. not only that, but the cracked out people who sold guillaume the house had kindly left the matresses there, but they'd never taken the plastic off. so i slept on a mattress in a plastic bag with one sheet over me. maybe it was the poor quality of the previous night's sleep or my unending generosity, but friday morning i was up and at 'em on the way to home depot for a grill and then on to wal mart for some flannel sheets and comforters and other homey items on which i spent entirely too much money.
some of you may be aware that the catskills were once known as the "borscht belt", a lot of hasids still hang out at decrepit camps in the area and there was no shortage of them when i went on my excursion. still, it's weird to see loads of them roaming around home depot, and odder still, wal mart. it was hard enough for me to simply be in a wal mart, but a wal mart full of hasid families was almost too much. because i like any sport involving a lawn and not much skill, i wandered into the "sporting goods" (read: guns and camo-everything) aisle. i saw a dude buy a gun. i heard another dude (none of these people were curly-cues, by the way) arguing with the gun man about the mandatory waiting period. i walked up to the gun counter and asked if they sold horseshoe games. they were out for the season.
i got back to the house and the heat, propane and cable had been hooked up so i hopped online and did a little work and then got to work grilling the steaks i'd imported from fairway. i bought some lovely hickory chunks which did not abide my impatience and eventually got covered in charcoal. it was a delightful dinner, after which we got insanely baked and watched harold & kumar go to white castle. the next morning i whipped up some chocolate chip scones and strawberries and cream. not healthy in any way, but fantastically delicious.
spent most of saturday travelling through the drizzle of upstate new york and new jersey to the drizzle of brooklyn. luckily, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy had arrived via netflix. sunday xx and i went to atlantic center. why the hell does it always look like there's about to be a national emergency at target? entire aisles are devoid of product every time i go there.
we hopped up to the maj's who threw a bbq in honor of summer ending and her brother's visit to ny. this event ended in us all being so fucked up that we started throwing any flammable item within reach into the grill. monday was all about productive. i finally finished editing a friend's manuscript in the park and then xx and i met the maj and brother deegan (and briefly lucy) at lovely union hall, where we played some fantastic bocce.
and now here i am, at work. boo.
31 August 2006
tip for a long weekend
even though my job sucks, they do things like give us the entire friday before labor day weekend off, so what can you do? guillaume and i are headed up to his fancy new house somewheres upstate for some steak grilling and i guess a lot of copy editing for me. yee haw.
knox: but that's not the point, that's not the point at all
charlie: what is the point?
knox: the point, charlie, is uh...
beer
knox: but that's not the point, that's not the point at all
charlie: what is the point?
knox: the point, charlie, is uh...
beer
24 August 2006
is it just me?
or is the nytimes.com front page every conservative republican's worst nightmare?
yesterday on the subway i finally saw something that inspired me enough to fill in my username and password on blogger and get this party started again. at least for today.
these two guys were sitting next to me and being generally annoying and loud. each listening to headphones and so talking over their own soundtracks. they took pictures of women as they got off the train with their cameraphones, which is just bizarre behaviour in my book. but then i looked over and noticed in one guy's armpit -- brace yourselves here -- was something that really really can only be described as a cocoon-like ball hanging in his pit tresses. talk about naseous. repulsive. of course then i couldn't stop staring at it. gross.
ps - the day my skillz go beyond screenshots and ms paint is the day i sell out.
yesterday on the subway i finally saw something that inspired me enough to fill in my username and password on blogger and get this party started again. at least for today.
these two guys were sitting next to me and being generally annoying and loud. each listening to headphones and so talking over their own soundtracks. they took pictures of women as they got off the train with their cameraphones, which is just bizarre behaviour in my book. but then i looked over and noticed in one guy's armpit -- brace yourselves here -- was something that really really can only be described as a cocoon-like ball hanging in his pit tresses. talk about naseous. repulsive. of course then i couldn't stop staring at it. gross.
ps - the day my skillz go beyond screenshots and ms paint is the day i sell out.
03 August 2006
didya miss me?
i got me a free starbuck's coffee. i don't even like coffee. or iced coffee, but i'm a jew. and it was free.
the woman who sits behind me has just informed me that tomorrow is "miller time" and seems to believe that she is going to bring beer to work and we're gonna drink it. i don't have anything against this, but that does not make it any less fucking weird.
finally made it to union hall last night. hoorah! they've got some nice bands lined up for the next week or so. i'm sadly going to miss oppenheimer tomorrow cause i'm going to see the 'rents. but maybe i'll catch the mugs next week finally. and rumor has it that sam champion will be there at some point.
so the point of this post is to welcome me back by telling you this quick tale....
i downloaded the newest version of itunes on my computer here at the office...in norwegian:
the woman who sits behind me has just informed me that tomorrow is "miller time" and seems to believe that she is going to bring beer to work and we're gonna drink it. i don't have anything against this, but that does not make it any less fucking weird.
finally made it to union hall last night. hoorah! they've got some nice bands lined up for the next week or so. i'm sadly going to miss oppenheimer tomorrow cause i'm going to see the 'rents. but maybe i'll catch the mugs next week finally. and rumor has it that sam champion will be there at some point.
so the point of this post is to welcome me back by telling you this quick tale....
i downloaded the newest version of itunes on my computer here at the office...in norwegian:
23 July 2006
first off, through no fault of the US govt, the aforementioned friend's family are safely back on us soil, or at least on their way (i'm not sure when she sent the email).
perhaps you've seen movies, or even that windows wallpaper that alludes to a place...a tropical paradise where it's just you and the sand and the lapping sea. a corona ad, perhaps. the end of 'trading places'. that stupid 'kokomo' song. there is always the promise of a place where mangrove trees grow over the ocean with enough low hanging branches to sling a hammock over, where the palm trees gracefully arch out over the sand, straining to get a look at the sea, where the water is blue, or green, or some new color that defies description. and there's no one else around. no one. unless you count the few people staying at the same bamboo hut village you're staying. where the food is unbelievably good and the beer is cold and they don't sell it during the day, but they are willing to give it to you for free. and the weather is perfect. and the rain is a performance not to be missed. and on the other side of this perfect island is another beach. different from the miles of uninhabited, almost flat, shallow waters of the first side. this side has thunderous surf, chrystalline blue waves, and is backed immediately beyond the sand by a jungle. perhaps a nice richshaw driver will take you and those with whom you came on a short walk, where you will see a lagoon that brings tears to your eyes because the color of the water can be captured only by an immensly expensive and rare gemstone, if that. and you will see a bird that glows.
you might, if you're very very lucky, spend three days floating on your back in this paradise of paradises, and continually say or agree with the maj as she says, 'holy fucking shit, this place IS perfect.'
so there was that whole thing. we're in chennai (madras) now. you may not know that indians didn't stop at renaming their cities. a great number of streets were renamed too. this makes it damn near impossible to get anywhere in the cities. it's not like anyone knows where the hell he's going anyway. every taxi, rickshaw or auto rickshaw we've been in has stopped to ask directions, or taken the lonely planet map away from me and made it perfectly clear that he is not at all familiar with his city of residence. i used to think new york cabbies weren't so great compared to london taxi trivers (which is true), but this shit is ridiculous.
good god i've gotten about ten mosquito bites since starting to write this. my feet are on fire.
ok, this ghetto version of IE won't even let me change the font or colour, so we're goin' analog. enjoy.
perhaps you've seen movies, or even that windows wallpaper that alludes to a place...a tropical paradise where it's just you and the sand and the lapping sea. a corona ad, perhaps. the end of 'trading places'. that stupid 'kokomo' song. there is always the promise of a place where mangrove trees grow over the ocean with enough low hanging branches to sling a hammock over, where the palm trees gracefully arch out over the sand, straining to get a look at the sea, where the water is blue, or green, or some new color that defies description. and there's no one else around. no one. unless you count the few people staying at the same bamboo hut village you're staying. where the food is unbelievably good and the beer is cold and they don't sell it during the day, but they are willing to give it to you for free. and the weather is perfect. and the rain is a performance not to be missed. and on the other side of this perfect island is another beach. different from the miles of uninhabited, almost flat, shallow waters of the first side. this side has thunderous surf, chrystalline blue waves, and is backed immediately beyond the sand by a jungle. perhaps a nice richshaw driver will take you and those with whom you came on a short walk, where you will see a lagoon that brings tears to your eyes because the color of the water can be captured only by an immensly expensive and rare gemstone, if that. and you will see a bird that glows.
you might, if you're very very lucky, spend three days floating on your back in this paradise of paradises, and continually say or agree with the maj as she says, 'holy fucking shit, this place IS perfect.'
so there was that whole thing. we're in chennai (madras) now. you may not know that indians didn't stop at renaming their cities. a great number of streets were renamed too. this makes it damn near impossible to get anywhere in the cities. it's not like anyone knows where the hell he's going anyway. every taxi, rickshaw or auto rickshaw we've been in has stopped to ask directions, or taken the lonely planet map away from me and made it perfectly clear that he is not at all familiar with his city of residence. i used to think new york cabbies weren't so great compared to london taxi trivers (which is true), but this shit is ridiculous.
good god i've gotten about ten mosquito bites since starting to write this. my feet are on fire.
ok, this ghetto version of IE won't even let me change the font or colour, so we're goin' analog. enjoy.
16 July 2006
baited breath
today's update is only this:
i just found out that one of my closest friends in the world's family are stranded in beruit. it would seem that they should be fine but it will probably be hard for them to get home what with the aiport bombed and all. some day i will tell you the stories of the post office, and the train to calcutta and maybe even some other stuff, but for now, let's just wish them well.
wcs
i just found out that one of my closest friends in the world's family are stranded in beruit. it would seem that they should be fine but it will probably be hard for them to get home what with the aiport bombed and all. some day i will tell you the stories of the post office, and the train to calcutta and maybe even some other stuff, but for now, let's just wish them well.
wcs
12 July 2006
a quick tally
Number of times my imminent death has become a very real possibility:
5 july: 2
9 july: 2
10 july: 4
11 july: 8
jeeps with a minimum of 10 people + fog + himalayas + monsoon season + washed out roads + 7+ hour journeys = lots of really fucking close calls.
5 july: 2
9 july: 2
10 july: 4
11 july: 8
jeeps with a minimum of 10 people + fog + himalayas + monsoon season + washed out roads + 7+ hour journeys = lots of really fucking close calls.
ps--we had our very own bomb scare here in gangtok...a box was left in the middle of MG Marg and the police shut everythihg around it down and cleared the area. turned out to be some dude's pyjamas.
09 July 2006
it sure does rain a lot here
greetings from gangtok! the commercial and something or other capital of sikkim. the views from here are pretty great, even if the clouds are still blocking the major himalayan peaks.
we arrived yesterday, promptly found some other travellers, and got drunk. today was a bit of shut up monastery and walking up steep hills and krrish, a movie you should see if you're anywhere near a theatre that's playing it. (ny kids, i'm looking at you here.)
the rain will not hold us back, we will trudge on through the mud. and the leeches. tomorrow we go up to some valley with some dudes and trek around. it sounds like a lot more driving and staying in hotels than trekkking, but if you could see the kind of rain that's coming down right now, you'd be OK with that, too. pray for clear skies.
i've finally realized that there is a minimum of three cups of chai a day, and this is if you refuse upwards of five offers of it. what's more, it's usually poffered by some adorable child who looks at you with gigantic brown eyes and a dazzling smile and has this cute metal basket that holds glasses that he or she is delightedly swinging back and forth in anticipation of bringing you a hot glass, and sweetly says "chai?" you've said "two please," before you even know what happened.
hey, HBO has commercials on it here. isn't that weird? i suppose that might be the least weird thing i've seen here, but i still get a kick out of it. i'm surprised at how many hotels have had tellys. even the bare bones place we stayed in siliguri had one. we do not have one here and it's a nice change of pace.
this town apparently has a city-wide wake up policy that requires some dude to roam the streets at some ungodly hour banging on a gong and yelling something in one of about four options of languages, a la "bring out your dead". who knows, maybe that's what he's saying.
gangtok is the source for "alpine gouda cheese". what else do you want from me?
chow mein is very popular here. i've enjoyed it myself. it is more like what is called lo mein in the states, but with thinner noodles. also popular here is chewing on red stuff and spewing a geyser of red saliva all over the place. these dudes are way into that.
a spring roll has nothing to do with anything you've ever seen before. it's basically a chow mein omlette. yep, that's what i said, and that's what i meant.
per usual, it is loud, chaotic, confusing and beautiful. and the water is rather unreliable.
we arrived yesterday, promptly found some other travellers, and got drunk. today was a bit of shut up monastery and walking up steep hills and krrish, a movie you should see if you're anywhere near a theatre that's playing it. (ny kids, i'm looking at you here.)
the rain will not hold us back, we will trudge on through the mud. and the leeches. tomorrow we go up to some valley with some dudes and trek around. it sounds like a lot more driving and staying in hotels than trekkking, but if you could see the kind of rain that's coming down right now, you'd be OK with that, too. pray for clear skies.
i've finally realized that there is a minimum of three cups of chai a day, and this is if you refuse upwards of five offers of it. what's more, it's usually poffered by some adorable child who looks at you with gigantic brown eyes and a dazzling smile and has this cute metal basket that holds glasses that he or she is delightedly swinging back and forth in anticipation of bringing you a hot glass, and sweetly says "chai?" you've said "two please," before you even know what happened.
hey, HBO has commercials on it here. isn't that weird? i suppose that might be the least weird thing i've seen here, but i still get a kick out of it. i'm surprised at how many hotels have had tellys. even the bare bones place we stayed in siliguri had one. we do not have one here and it's a nice change of pace.
this town apparently has a city-wide wake up policy that requires some dude to roam the streets at some ungodly hour banging on a gong and yelling something in one of about four options of languages, a la "bring out your dead". who knows, maybe that's what he's saying.
gangtok is the source for "alpine gouda cheese". what else do you want from me?
chow mein is very popular here. i've enjoyed it myself. it is more like what is called lo mein in the states, but with thinner noodles. also popular here is chewing on red stuff and spewing a geyser of red saliva all over the place. these dudes are way into that.
a spring roll has nothing to do with anything you've ever seen before. it's basically a chow mein omlette. yep, that's what i said, and that's what i meant.
per usual, it is loud, chaotic, confusing and beautiful. and the water is rather unreliable.
07 July 2006
who knows what my rrs reader looks like
so we're in darjeeling at the mo. it's a bit wet here. but that's what happens when you travel to india during the monsoons. despite all the rain/mist/clouds, etc., it's still been sweet. all wide eyed and what not. i've been taking pictures like a japanese tourist, and will upload them at some point and you will all gasp with disbelief when i show you just how fucking insanely enchanting this coutnry is.
a few highlights:
our shared jeep (read: 15 people in the equivalent of a shitty land rover) broke its axle on the way from siliguri to darjeeling and we were serendipitously picked up by the bus. this is clearly not scratching the surface of this story, but it's enough to give you an idea of how things work around here.
delhi is kind of a hell hole. the maj and i were thrilled to leave. we flew to bagdogra or something like that. it's beautiful in this part of the coutnry (west bengal).
people LOVE taking pictures of us. we were at the zoo earlier and we felt like one of the attractions. the maj and i patiently smiled whilst about 20 bangledeshis (who we'd met thenight before at a park) all posed one by one to have their pictures snapped (with oldschool film cameras) with two white chicks.
the food is unbelievably good and almost as unbelievably cheap. we ate lunch for less than a dollar each.
that's it for now as i'm typing this on a shitty keyboard with a pretty heavy buzz on and we'rea headed off for more beers.
xo
wcs
a few highlights:
our shared jeep (read: 15 people in the equivalent of a shitty land rover) broke its axle on the way from siliguri to darjeeling and we were serendipitously picked up by the bus. this is clearly not scratching the surface of this story, but it's enough to give you an idea of how things work around here.
delhi is kind of a hell hole. the maj and i were thrilled to leave. we flew to bagdogra or something like that. it's beautiful in this part of the coutnry (west bengal).
people LOVE taking pictures of us. we were at the zoo earlier and we felt like one of the attractions. the maj and i patiently smiled whilst about 20 bangledeshis (who we'd met thenight before at a park) all posed one by one to have their pictures snapped (with oldschool film cameras) with two white chicks.
the food is unbelievably good and almost as unbelievably cheap. we ate lunch for less than a dollar each.
that's it for now as i'm typing this on a shitty keyboard with a pretty heavy buzz on and we'rea headed off for more beers.
xo
wcs
01 July 2006
the longest day of my life
currently i am relaxing at my friend wanda's house in woking, surrey. she very kindly came and fetched me at heathrow, drove me to hers and had her lovely fiancee (congratulations!!) make bacon sandwiches, which we enjoyed in the garden. i've had a shower and a tea and it's fantastic. in a couple hours, i'll go back to LHR and await my final leg to delhi. i do not like planes. i will also be enjoying the second of two flights in middle seats, hurrah. i am tired. it's 1230 here, about 730 eastern time.
weather in london is spectacular. even a bit hot.
watched 'junebug' on the plane. it's rather enjoyable.
cheers
wcs
weather in london is spectacular. even a bit hot.
watched 'junebug' on the plane. it's rather enjoyable.
cheers
wcs
30 June 2006
so this is it
my final entry on us soil for a while. last night, we had a very good celebration of all things american, mac 'n'cheese for dinner, a west wing, oh, and roll bounce.
xy shaved my head, and i won't mention the weird bald patch right above my right ear and the chunk he tried to take of my left ear (of my ear, not my hair). i look like i like the ladies...ooops.
namaste, motherfuckers.
xy shaved my head, and i won't mention the weird bald patch right above my right ear and the chunk he tried to take of my left ear (of my ear, not my hair). i look like i like the ladies...ooops.
namaste, motherfuckers.
29 June 2006
come pick me up
the maj just emailed me this confirmation from sweet ass hotel in delhi re: our pick up at the airport. it's like a piece of candy, this one:
Please note the driver would be standing near the arrival lounge with a placard in his hand which shall be having Hotel’s name and your name printed on it. The same shall be at the time of pick-up for Ms. Wild Cherry Sara. The placard shall be having her name printed. The car would definitely be in the parking but the driver would wait for you near the arrival lounge. If in case you find any trouble locating the driver please contact the hotel reception at [redacto].
the placard shall be having my name printed!! and the car would be in the parking lot! yes! and what do i do if trouble finds me first?
Please note the driver would be standing near the arrival lounge with a placard in his hand which shall be having Hotel’s name and your name printed on it. The same shall be at the time of pick-up for Ms. Wild Cherry Sara. The placard shall be having her name printed. The car would definitely be in the parking but the driver would wait for you near the arrival lounge. If in case you find any trouble locating the driver please contact the hotel reception at [redacto].
the placard shall be having my name printed!! and the car would be in the parking lot! yes! and what do i do if trouble finds me first?
with a little help from my friends
this is a special shout-out edition to those of you who have been so sweet about me going away...
some folks from work went out for a special lunch yesterday, and i was presented with my very favorite insanely delicious dessert: buttercup's banana pudding, so for that, thanks to rudoph and west river.
west river came through with the hilarious "sara, please come home safe EP" mixtape. i've never gotten an EP mixtape before, but i love it. we discussed how it makes good sense, as he didn't want to overload me with stuff, and this was the best and why waste time with filler. nice work, wr. thanks.
lester sent me the 21st century version of a mixtape, a buncha links. including lilly allen's LDN, which he suggested i listen to whilst im back home is where the heart is, and i just might!
stella has kindly volunteered to take me for a last fling with charred cow flesh tomorrow before i go to the airport.
and xy will be not only watering my plants, but doing the honors of removing the vast majority of my hair tonight. too bad he has no idea i sabotaged the shit out of the netflix queue for the time when xx and i will be gone.
xx took the time to read through more of my lonely planet than i did and spent tuesday night following me around the house as i pre-packed spewing all sorts of useful facts.
apple brandy gave me a handy list of good street foods to try in delhi and the name of a restaurant or two.
and lots of others who've given me advice or hooked me up with people who've travelled in india. thank you all!
i hope to do at least a few posts from hindustan, but who the hell knows what will happen. check in every now and again and i'll try and give you a reason to stay.
ps, what's up with this? someone stole a government laptop that had all sorts of infor about veterans? kinda strange thing to steal if you ask me. this is just like the time someone stole bono's laptop with all the lyrics to the then-upcoming U2 record.
some folks from work went out for a special lunch yesterday, and i was presented with my very favorite insanely delicious dessert: buttercup's banana pudding, so for that, thanks to rudoph and west river.
west river came through with the hilarious "sara, please come home safe EP" mixtape. i've never gotten an EP mixtape before, but i love it. we discussed how it makes good sense, as he didn't want to overload me with stuff, and this was the best and why waste time with filler. nice work, wr. thanks.
lester sent me the 21st century version of a mixtape, a buncha links. including lilly allen's LDN, which he suggested i listen to whilst im back home is where the heart is, and i just might!
stella has kindly volunteered to take me for a last fling with charred cow flesh tomorrow before i go to the airport.
and xy will be not only watering my plants, but doing the honors of removing the vast majority of my hair tonight. too bad he has no idea i sabotaged the shit out of the netflix queue for the time when xx and i will be gone.
xx took the time to read through more of my lonely planet than i did and spent tuesday night following me around the house as i pre-packed spewing all sorts of useful facts.
apple brandy gave me a handy list of good street foods to try in delhi and the name of a restaurant or two.
and lots of others who've given me advice or hooked me up with people who've travelled in india. thank you all!
i hope to do at least a few posts from hindustan, but who the hell knows what will happen. check in every now and again and i'll try and give you a reason to stay.
ps, what's up with this? someone stole a government laptop that had all sorts of infor about veterans? kinda strange thing to steal if you ask me. this is just like the time someone stole bono's laptop with all the lyrics to the then-upcoming U2 record.
28 June 2006
a last holdout
brooklyn record's all up in timboo's with a great, albeit quick, piece about the age-old bar. it's not a place i frequent. i've been maybe twice in the last 4 years, but whenever i did go in (super wasted and ready for karaoke) the people were friendly and fun.
br talks about how it is an ironworkers bar, which makes me wonder how many ironworkers are really left in the slope. but the best thing about the article is the picture...see that guy in the cowboy hat? he's always standing out front of timboo's. full suit, hat, great stache (the kind you're just not allowed to have unless you're over 70), beautiful cane and a bunch of union pins on his lapel. i see him out there almost every saturday and sunday morning. yeah, morning. anyway, whoever you are, cheers to you, that guy!
br talks about how it is an ironworkers bar, which makes me wonder how many ironworkers are really left in the slope. but the best thing about the article is the picture...see that guy in the cowboy hat? he's always standing out front of timboo's. full suit, hat, great stache (the kind you're just not allowed to have unless you're over 70), beautiful cane and a bunch of union pins on his lapel. i see him out there almost every saturday and sunday morning. yeah, morning. anyway, whoever you are, cheers to you, that guy!
27 June 2006
just so you know
i'm officially a douchebag. i just bought a moleskine journal (r) to record my idiot musings whilst in india.
things left to buy:
purse/bag, knife, soap, some stuff for the maj, toothbrush holder.
good news: i will be in fucking london for saturday's england v. portugal world cup game
bad news: i will be boarding a plane just around halftime of saturday's england v. portugal world cup game.
kisses,
cliche cherry sara
things left to buy:
purse/bag, knife, soap, some stuff for the maj, toothbrush holder.
good news: i will be in fucking london for saturday's england v. portugal world cup game
bad news: i will be boarding a plane just around halftime of saturday's england v. portugal world cup game.
kisses,
cliche cherry sara
26 June 2006
devotchka!!
Saturday guillaume and i checked out devotchka at bowery ballroom (oh, what a thrill with two visits to bb in one week!). they were totally awesome.
nick urata's voice is just as spine tingling as i hoped it would be, and they treated us to the two stars from their latest ep of covers, "curse your little heart": "i cried like a silly boy" and "somethin' stupid". i remember 'the oblivion' and 'queen of the surface streets' and 'how it ends', the rest of their set was nicely sprinkled with ballads, but much of it was rambunctious and fun. the crowd really got into it. the girl in front of me bounced through most of the show, only landing on my foot twice.
nick urata's voice is just as spine tingling as i hoped it would be, and they treated us to the two stars from their latest ep of covers, "curse your little heart": "i cried like a silly boy" and "somethin' stupid". i remember 'the oblivion' and 'queen of the surface streets' and 'how it ends', the rest of their set was nicely sprinkled with ballads, but much of it was rambunctious and fun. the crowd really got into it. the girl in front of me bounced through most of the show, only landing on my foot twice.
also cool, two bands (i think norfolk & western used one) with theremins in one night. YES! btw, norfolk & western are worth checking out, if only to watch the one guy who seemingly plays every fucking instrument there is...banjo, mandolin, musical saw, accordion, violin/viola(?). he came out for a devotchka song and played violin with them, too.
for the encore, they brought out a bunch of young ladies with accordions, here is a blurry picture of them:
ps--this band have an AWESOME sense of style. they were so professional looking. uh. that nick is HOT.
23 June 2006
fun with realaudio
how many times can i talk about how much i love mmj? lots. and more excitingly, i can give you a link to their 3+ hour bonaroo performance. woo! it takes a fucking year to download tho.
via gothamist, i think.
via gothamist, i think.
ps, that is bor fave andrew bird whistling and violining along in there. dude sounds like a theramin
you gotta put your faith in a loud guitar
there was a little bit of controversy at last night's Air Guitar Championships at Bowery Ballroom.
It seems the judges (the owner of Vice, a dude from the daily show, former champion sonyk rock and an a&r dude from Atlantic Records) didn't know exactly how the scoring worked and so asked for a reneg on the champion they chose. what happened was, william ocean scored ok in the first round and got a near-perfect in the second round, while the guy with the sombrero scored very well in the first round and also got a near perfect second round score, giving him the title. seems fair enough. whether or not you win should be based on your chosen performance song as well as compulsory (enter sandman, excellent choice!-- when the contestants all got to listen to the bit they would play, it took about three seconds before all their heads, save that of the rainbow zombie guy, who totally stayed in character, were bobbing along. mine was too) performance.
anyway, the judges were all "we'd like to have an air-off", because they wanted william ocean to win. give it up for the man, he shaved the word "air" into his chest hair, and crushed a beer can by sort of piledriving it. he also had his cohorts carry him through the crowd during his entersandman. he was pretty insane. (his first performance was prince, i think, and he came out with a graduation gown type thing that said Warning: prepare to be rocked on the back.) anyway, the sombrero guy, who's initial song i cannot remember but who was very good, went totally insane during the second round and ran up the stairs to the balcony where the judges were and hooked his legs through the bars and leaned over. we all thought in some way he was going to die. but he didn't, he just spilled all the judges' drinks and knocked a bunch of shit over and scared the shit out of them. intense, thy name is sombrero dude.
anyway, it was a bit shitty because they'd given sombrero guy his trophy already--the head of the air guitar committee or whatever looked like he walked off a dockers ad, not exactly the kind of person you'd expect to be in charge of a bunch of air guitarists--but now they wanted to take it away. william ocean was very gracious and clearly did not want to be a part of such an unearned and underhanded win, the audience were torn, wanting to see an air off (who doesn't?) but also thinking it was a shit thing to do. in the end, the air guitarists spoke, all of them stuck up for mr sombrero head because he'd won it fair and square. one of them even told the judges to "follow the rules". it was an interesting political process.
other highlights of the evening included me getting pissed off at the morons who had to take upwards of 40 pictures (i took twoand haven't uploaded them yet), a guy breathing fire, a 50-something guy who put on a pretty sad performance, but was cool nonetheless, psycho dave losing his wig about six seconds into his performance and ruining his chances (much like that fucking penatly kick ghana undeservedly got fucked the US in yesterday's game...ahem), bjorn toroque endlessly talking about himself, the owner of vice remarking that rainbow zombie's partial-moon looked like a "baby's cunt", and the overwhelming joy that only comes when someone plays "crazy train", good god i love that song, i mean are there better lyrics in the world than "i'm running off the rails on a crazy train"? (no, there aren't)
extra special attention should be paid to the guy who...caught the air guitar that one of the performers pretended to throw off the stage. to you, dude, i say this: you are SO. FUCKING. LAME.
the final hurrah, anyone was invited to the stage for "keep on rocking in the free world"
william ocean, in all his violent glory
It seems the judges (the owner of Vice, a dude from the daily show, former champion sonyk rock and an a&r dude from Atlantic Records) didn't know exactly how the scoring worked and so asked for a reneg on the champion they chose. what happened was, william ocean scored ok in the first round and got a near-perfect in the second round, while the guy with the sombrero scored very well in the first round and also got a near perfect second round score, giving him the title. seems fair enough. whether or not you win should be based on your chosen performance song as well as compulsory (enter sandman, excellent choice!-- when the contestants all got to listen to the bit they would play, it took about three seconds before all their heads, save that of the rainbow zombie guy, who totally stayed in character, were bobbing along. mine was too) performance.
anyway, the judges were all "we'd like to have an air-off", because they wanted william ocean to win. give it up for the man, he shaved the word "air" into his chest hair, and crushed a beer can by sort of piledriving it. he also had his cohorts carry him through the crowd during his entersandman. he was pretty insane. (his first performance was prince, i think, and he came out with a graduation gown type thing that said Warning: prepare to be rocked on the back.) anyway, the sombrero guy, who's initial song i cannot remember but who was very good, went totally insane during the second round and ran up the stairs to the balcony where the judges were and hooked his legs through the bars and leaned over. we all thought in some way he was going to die. but he didn't, he just spilled all the judges' drinks and knocked a bunch of shit over and scared the shit out of them. intense, thy name is sombrero dude.
anyway, it was a bit shitty because they'd given sombrero guy his trophy already--the head of the air guitar committee or whatever looked like he walked off a dockers ad, not exactly the kind of person you'd expect to be in charge of a bunch of air guitarists--but now they wanted to take it away. william ocean was very gracious and clearly did not want to be a part of such an unearned and underhanded win, the audience were torn, wanting to see an air off (who doesn't?) but also thinking it was a shit thing to do. in the end, the air guitarists spoke, all of them stuck up for mr sombrero head because he'd won it fair and square. one of them even told the judges to "follow the rules". it was an interesting political process.
other highlights of the evening included me getting pissed off at the morons who had to take upwards of 40 pictures (i took two
extra special attention should be paid to the guy who...caught the air guitar that one of the performers pretended to throw off the stage. to you, dude, i say this: you are SO. FUCKING. LAME.
the final hurrah, anyone was invited to the stage for "keep on rocking in the free world"
william ocean, in all his violent glory
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