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.

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

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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!

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!

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:

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.

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.

sometimes it looks like we might just be OK

war, poverty, hatred, stress, stupid jobs and kevin costner movies are some of the bad things we've come up with as a species.

but we can do things like this, too.

via ze frank, who was hysterical at ted. (via Waxy)

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.

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

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.

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:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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 two and 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

if living right is easy, what goes wrong?

i met (beta) for the son volt show at the world financial center yesterday. it was really fun! if you like alt-country, free things, bagels and breezy afternoons, you would have liked it, too.

the show was at the marina next to the financial center so it was just lovely out. except for the short, heavy rainshower we got. which was exceptionally weird as it was sunny to the west. i bet there was a rainbow somewhere.

i don't know son volt that well, i've heard and always liked them, but the only song i recognized was "drown", which is great and i used to think was they might be giants...they played lots of pretty stuff that goes well with sunny afternoons, and some crunchier stuff and they covered "i'm not like everybody else", which was pretty cool.

well, that was vague.

i made the horrid mistake of meeting xy for a drink downtown. he and i are both big fans of that area of the city, so we walked around and got shitfaced. gin is disgusting. i liked it up until about 4 hours ago, and it is now my sworn enemy. i was cuddling a bottle of gatorade on the train ths morning, trying to regulate my breathing and not spew all over my fellow commuters. one of my coworkers just sent me an email addressed to "drunky the clown", which made me laugh, which made me want to puke.

best. videos. ever.

accorting to pfork. ok, it's some of their favorites, which means i can exuse them for the lack of

sabotage
i can't wait
just
if i could turn back time (kidding)

T minus 10 days

ok, so 10 days from now i will be getting on a plane to fly for two days over to india. weird. how is it that i planned this thing myself and i still can't get my head round the fact that it's actually going to happen? and what do i have to do still? laundry, for sure. probably buy some shitty clothes i can discard along the way. start malaria meds....make a big fuck off list of all the shit i need to do.

the moms was in town this weekend and we went shopping. EMS was certainly glad to see us, as i think we bought nearly everything in the store. water purifier, rehydration salts, deet, rain jacket, etc. i hope it all fits in my pack.

we spent the rest of the weekend in the theatre...

first off was the history boys: pretty good, apparently it is a movie, too. members of the cast were familiar from harry potter. anyway, it was all about how learning just to learn isn't meaningful, it's learning to live that is important. duh. still, a bunch of boys in ties lolling around a classroom pontificating is always relatively amusing, and it's very clever. there was a lack of english audience members illutsrated when no one even chuckled when they made a comment about living in hull...

we came out of the matinee and were lucky enough to catch the last few minutes + stoppage of the usa v. italy game on the jumbotron.

then we had some din din at the jewel of india restaurant, which was not far from the theatre. food was pretty good. i had some tasty lamb tandoori and mom kicked it korma style. the puri was gigantic, like the size of a basketball. unfortuntately, about halfway through my meal i looked over and noticed this sitting next to me:

next was the lieutenant of inishmore...i've been to the aran islands, they are fucking beautiful. windswept, wild, wooly. we stayed on the tiniest of them all, inis oirr, where no one locked their doors and you could traverse every inch of the place in about 45 minutes. after a long day of walking around and around and around, shwags and i went down the pub/restaurant/city centre and ate the most irish meal ever: lamb and roast potatoes with carrots or something. it was the hartiest meal in memory, and it was accompanied by live music and footie and, obviously, beer. we never wanted to leave. but the point is, these are very wee islands off the coast of galway and not a whole lot tends to happen on them. basically a member of an IRA splinter group is called home because his cat has fallen ill (actually it's been bludgeoned but he doesn't know that) the dude is what some of us would call a psychotic and his temper is feared throughout the land. the father reminded me of an old english professor i had, round pale yet blotched face, white hair, jolly stature. and the other guy was a whiny, long-haired wussy-type who provided the majority of the comic relief. the only thing i don't get is what this play is doing on broadway, it's pretty silly, and seems like it would only really appeal to a pretty small niche, those who enjoy irish nationalist humor...but moms and i both thought it was a fun time. NB: it was at the lyceum, which is probably my favorite b'way theatre.

the moms and i crashed at the algonquin hotel, which is fecking gaaargeous. they've done a really nice job keeping it looking nice. apparently it looked pretty shit up until about five years ago, but they've mended all that now. lots of very dark wood and large leather chairs that want you to sit in them all day and drink expensive scotch. we didn't, but next time!

my only complaint is this:

stupid, stupid, stupid wallpaper of new yorker cartoons. who likes that shit? they really do give themselves a lot of credit for being a literary heritage site, there's a little booklet in every room that tells you all about all the famous stuff and people that were there. it's interesting.

anyway, if you have the means, i highly recommend putting up a family member there.





sunday was the big shop, bookended by the Immigrant Day Festival (or some such)




and "7th heaven" the 7th ave fair in PS. -->



which i followed up with dinner at sakura. verdict: fucking rad.
xx and i split a tofu and avocado salad (best idea ever?) and then i had an alaska roll and a spicy tuna roll, both of which were super fresh and not that pricey (5 or 6 bucks). plus they have a nice backyard. here are the trees from it:

we were dancing all night long

so, you'd think that after getting up at 545 and drinking and hanging out in the windy sunshine all day, i'd probably want to go home.

not so much, it seems. xx and i split off from xy when he went back home to drop off some shit and change and we hung around le cite. then we re-met up at guero, which was apparently formerly a lesbian bar and they haven't really done much redecorating. we had a pint there and then walked over to loreley for hollaback's birthday.

obviously, loreley's just the kind of place where you know you're not getting out before at least 3. coach dball and k-fed spun all the hits the kids love and we danced our asses off yet again. at some point, bonnaroo was doing everything she could to get rid of the little glowy bracelet someone had bestowed upon her. the thankful recipient then proceeded to wave it up and down for practically the rest of the night. xx vanished into the night around 3am, leaving me to fend for myself, which is never a smart plan. in this case, we closed the place and headed over to sing sing for karaoke. somehow we got in after they'd closed and continued our revelry for an hour or so. the highlight here was k-fed's spectacular header off one of the tables. some sort of surf move gone pear-shaped, he managed to not only take quite few beers down with him, but didn't miss a beat of whatever song he was singing. it was hilarious.

i think i remember someone singing "islands in the stream", and at one point i engaged in what can only be explained as embarrasingly drunken behaviour in which i and a cohort did a freestyle song about blogging to U2's "one"...don't even ask.

we emerged into daylight and ignored the (smarter) ones who suggested getting food, and instead headed over to drink more beer at someone's apt in the les. there were a number of bloggers amongst the crowd (real ones, who like get paid and stuff) and hysterically the conversation turned to php and css and other geeky subjects right around 6. just after i'd hit 24 stupid hours of being awake. staying up that long seems like a fantastic idea at the time, but it's really not.

arrival home: 745 am. sunday was hell, i never even bothered getting dressed. thank god i had weed and super troopers.

drink beer out in the country

saturday was family day at the races as xy and some friends were heading to belmont and xx and i went along for the "ride" (ha!).

unfortunately, this required getting up at 545 am, something i rarely, if ever, do. if i'm gonna be up at quarter to six in the morning, it's because i still haven't gone to bed yet. anyway, through all our crankiness, we grabbed some rad bagels from bagel hole and met up with the rest of the crew. there was some discussion as to the absence of one guy, post, who apparetnly had gone to bed only minutes before we were meant to meet and leave, he would meet up with us later, and i'm pretty sure he never bothered sobering up.

we arrived well before the gates opened, which xx and i used as grumble fodder for why the hell we had to get there that fucking early, but whatevs.

there's of course the strange juxtaposition at tracks of people who wear fancy clothes and sit with opera glasses way up high and people with coolers and baseball caps, which i never really got past. xx and i spent a lot of time wandering around the various floors saying, "ooh! more rich people!" and wondering how it was any fun to hang out in those outfits all day.

i won my first race and lost all the rest of them, i ended up down about $10 on the day, which i guess is fine. i've never been much for gambling anyway. no one really won big, but the boys seemed to enjoy throwing large amounts of cash away.

awesome: they had smithwick's for $6.75, which was cheaper than a lot of other beer
stupid: they had a fucking get well card for a horse. A. HORSE.

gates to microsoft: i generally spent most of my day just reading blogs, anyway

billy g isn't even gonna drag his ass to the office any more.

"I believe with great wealth comes great responsibility - the responsibility to give back to society and make sure those resources are given back in the best possible way, to those in need," he said

is it just me or did once he catch a rather largish load of flack for not giving money to charity for many years?

alternate headline: gates admits to "mostly just staring out the window" all day long

whatever happened to good old fashioned vinegar and bakin soda (or was it powder)?

mentos + diet coke + geeks = bellagio

(slashdot)

you're now allowed to do something you should've always been allowed to do in the UK

convert your own cds into mp3s, etc.

but don't even THINK about doing it for your friends.

via slashdot

it seems the avoidance of coffee wasn't such a smart choice

i'm not much into coffee, but thanks to this article i just recieved from craigslist, i should perhaps start drinking it by the gallon.

i vaguely remember 1010wins mentioning something similar to that last line of "the primary approach to reduction of alcoholic cirrhosis is avoidance or cessation of heavy alcohol drinking," but i'd already missed the beginning where they tell you that coffee cuts down on your chances of it.

pass the mochalatte!

dog bites zip burger

we've had a busy day here at the bagofrocks newsroom, but now, in the shade of the afternoon, i'm here with some good news.

1. dog bites man might have real potential
2. zip burger is delicious

dbm is shot in a very similar way to the original "office" series, and is equally awkward. the only real threat this show has (aside from not having longevity) is that people may be a little sick of feeling sick when they watch tv. it was only the first episode and i cringed mulitple times, which, for me is a good sign. but what with the us office and curb your enthusiasm and the office office, other people might be over it. i'm certainly keeping it on the dvr, though. i urge you to give it a shot. you will be impressed, even if you don't enjoy it.

some friendly coworkers and i went to zip burger for lunch. me = burger w/goat cheese, grilled vidalia onions, let, tom, bacon on whole wheat bun. west river = burger w/cheddar & vidalia onions, rudolph = veggie burger (wow! all lentily and delicious) w/gouda on soudough, redvines = burger w/american and let/tom. + 2 orders fries. verdict: we all talked about how good it was the whole way back to the office and plan a return trip next week. the patties are a little on the greasy/thin side, but delicious and cooked miraculously to medium rare. fries are a little salty for my taste, but rudy loved that. west wing river thought i overloaded mine and overpowered the burger, but he can suck it. word to the wise, the milkshakes are made with soft-serve ice cream.

hours logged on the phone with cingular = 4.5

ok, so first there was the phone that hooked itself to the internet all day long, resulting in various monthly charges of 60 and 70 bucks, which required at least one phone call each to remove from my bill.

then there was the replacement phone, sent with a sim card that wasn't compatible and therefore disabled the voicemail icon.

then came the replacement sim card for that sim card that was STILL THE WRONG sim card.

then came the next sim card, which, following a message that said "message center number" when i tried to send a text to xx, i finally called to activate.

when you call for this shit, they make you punch in your phone number, then when they answer the phone, they make you give them your phone number again. then they ask you your name, then the last four digits of your ssn.

what with all this information they're using to verify things, i'm pretty fucking amazed at how the woman managed to activate my sim card to SOMEONE ELSE'S phone number. of course, i didn't know this until i tried to call myself and leave myself a vm to see if it worked and the icon is back. beep boop boop beep beep beep beep...dead air. DEAD. FUCKING. AIR.

luckily, i now have cingular's customer service number memorized and am currently on the phone with travis, who is, as they have all been, very helpful, but in whom i have very little confidence.

he just said "this is probably not going to be good".

turns out the lady i spoke to was making changes to another customer's account, which explained why she thought i had a nokia. (travis told me they work off three separate screens and she punched in the wrong number on one of her screens after verifying the account. which is obviously very comforting.) i mentioned that not only do i not have a nokia, but haven't for quite some time and have even recently been the recipient of a REPLACEMENT LG phone from THEM, so doesn't she think it's weird that it says i have a nokia; and also i DO have text messaging and i'm a little concerned that she says it says i don't on my account. this did not prompt her to double-check that she was looking at the right account, she just gave me a little attitude and activated my sim card to some other poor sod's phone -- who, incidentally, just unexplainedly lost all use of his or her phone. ha ha, guess they'll be dialing 18003310500 soon!!

anyway, they're now going to, for the third time, ship me a motherfucking sim card (dare i mention that i asked them to ship it to my work address, but they went ahead and sent it to my apartment anyway? nah, i'll leave that out). only travis didn't know what i was talking about when i said i need a special one that starts with 4101 instead of 4103, so chances are this one won't work either.

stay tuned!

all the news that's blatantly obvious

i was just glancing over the times website trying to avoid reading about that guy they dropped 2 500lb bombs on, and noticed these hard-hitting headlines in the AP and reuters section:

Lawyer Says Pete Doherty in Detox

Bush: Not Clear When Troops Can Leave Iraq

Extremists Mourn Al - Zarqawi's Death

sunday times xxxword

i am a week behind on my crosswording, so i'm still doing a week ago sunday's.

58 down: ejaculate

c _ _

what the?

bollywood 101

woozy and i hit the imaginasian on monday to see fanaa, a movie set in kashmir and delhi. i heart bollywood for many reasons, but one of the more important ones is their blatant disregard for realism of any kind in their plots...observe:

blind girl from kashmir goes to delhi with her dance troupe and meets the suave (?), sexy (?), rougueish-yet-charming womanizing tour guide who pulls out his heavy artillery of horrid, on-the-spot poetry to cajole her into hanging out with him. he gives her a tour of the city and she touches his face a lot. all her friends, of course, are split between "stay away from that slime ball" and "oh, he's so dreamy!"

eventually, she caves and they have a big dance scene (nb: i missed this b/c i got a call from the maj in prague which i figured i should go ahead and take, woozy says it was pretty good). the last day she is in town, tourguide fails to show up for whatever they're supossed to do. so she, in all her blindness, tracks him down and yells at him and they do it (nb again: i have NEVER seen such a racy bollywood movie, normally they don't even kiss, but this time they were clearly doin' it). she leaves the next day to get on a train and of course he shows up on the train and, get ready, carries her down the tracks back to delhi after they pull the fucking emergency brake.

they decide to get married and she finally goes for the eye check up her mom's been nagging her about. lo and behold! there is a new surgery "silly girl, you should have come to the doctor long ago, there have been such advancements!" that can, you guessed it, restore her sight.

she comes out of surgery, mom & dad are there, but rehan (tourguide) is nowhere to be seen. then we find out that someone has blown up something in delhi and she is called in to identify the remains. she clings to the horrid sweatervest she knitted him and remembers when he said "to be a piece of wool wrapped around that finger" (hello shakespeare!) and it's all very emotional.

then we see the like, center for anti-terrorism or something and they're talking about this uncatchable mastermind behind all these recent bombings, etc. of course, we now know it's rehan, who has cut his ridiculous hair, finally stopped wearing scarves all the time and is acting all james bond at the airport. turns out he's fighting for the IKF to create an independent kashmir.

he goes back to his snowy training camp where the boys are all playing footie and his grandfather is all "i'm so proud of you". eventually the indian gov't find out he's stolen a trigger for a nuclear bomb and they chase him around for a while. he ends up in the middle of the night at the door of like the only house for 1000 miles.

guess who lives there?? what's-her-face and her son, rehan (ahhh, that's why they had the sex scene!) and her dad (mom's died). of course, she was blind when they were together, but now she's not, and can't recognize him (i guess his voice didn't tip her off, plus she thinks he's dead). anyway, they bring him inside and nurse him back and eventually everyone figures everything out and rehan the elder says he just needs this one mission and then he'll come back to them forever and they get married at her house.

however, she ends up shooting him because he refuses to give up the trigger to the indian gov't.

the end.

i can't believe what i do late at night

nickels gratuated from graduate school not too long ago, so we went out to celebrate saturday. we started at the crocodile lounge, which, while playing pretty good music and having some of the nicest barstaff around, isn't all that. $5 bud light is not made up for by free, salt-ridden pizza. give me capone's any day over that shit.

anyway, we moved on to grassroots, which turned out to be a bust because nickels only had his birth certificate and college id and that is apparently not enough to convince that guy who's always sitting on the stool that he's 21. we rolled across the street to bull mccabe's. i haven't been here since tampson took me there about 4 or 5 years ago, either before or just after i moved to le cite.

kirin ichiban and i wanted to crack some balls, so we got on the old pool list. here's the funny thing about playing pool in bars: sometimes you play with some really fun folks and you all have a good time. see: last week's trip to brooklyn social club. sometimes, you play with some totally anal retentive arseholes who seem to think that, despite being at a crowded bar at 12 am, it's totally acceptable to make you call all of your shots and play by every fucking rule in the book. "oh, no, you hit our ball, that's a scratch". dude, go to a fucking pool hall if you're gonna act that way. rules are all fun and stuff, but we're fucking around here. plus, we shouldn't have to play by your rules, we can all make up some new ones together! like i get to whack you in the nads with the short stick after you grumble at my teammate's ass kicking pool abilities. anyway, justice was served when we beat the ever loving shit out of them and the team that followed, including a beautiful three-in-a-row streak that ended with the eight ball for me. woo!

we'd had just enough of that, and nickels had taken it upon himself to finish my fucking widmer bros, which angered me, so we popped over to sing sing. normally by the time i get to karaoke i'm, uh, hammered. but we were all severely buzzed at this point. which worked out well, since there was an 80 minute wait for songs.

this gave us plenty of time to cajole sake shots out of the guys sitting next to us, get kirin ichiban drunk enough to sing, for nickels to bite the fucking shit out of my finger (i can't for the life of me remember why), for people to sing "champagne supernova" three times (what's up with this song? why do so many people want to fucking sing it?), for me to sing "don't stop believin'" with xx and "manic monday" with wafflehouse, and for about 6 dudes all wearing the same button-down striped shirts to convince us to come with them and hang out in their room (there is no way to make this not sound like a freshman girl's first time at a frat party).

so we went. we were three girls and two guys, so we were safe enough. they paid for everything though, can't knock that. plus we got in some beasties, allman brothers, lots of madonna and tom petty. it seems that given the chance, i will become a karaoke whore...oops. but when no one's singing, i'll do it!

per usual, we got ejected when the place shut down and proceeded to spend the next 1.5 hours on the street talking to another group of guys all wearing button-down shirts. sadly, none of them, nor my own friends, agreed with my theory that since it was already getting light, we might as well go down to the staten island ferry for a sunrise cruise. losers. next time!

and once again, the sun was above the horizon when i finally closed my eyes. these early sunrises are gonna be the death of me.

why do you suddenly care about July 13?

because that's when the office will be starting its webisodes! 10 minute web-only tide-you-overs.

my deepest fears come to light

who doesn't have the slightest hint of panic that those colonial w'burg ads are actually gonna be about our very own broken-glass-and-hipster-laden tourist destination?




via gawkster