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.

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.

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.

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. i forget 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.

18 October 2006

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.

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!

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.

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!!

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.