So So Ghetto
I've upgraded to MT 3.2. I'm having issues importing my old entries. I'll probably focus on that before playing with the CSS and templates.
December 18, 2005
December 17, 2005
Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood
A formerly full yellow moon hangs low in the sky. I bask it its glow for a moment and reflect on the days and weeks past. Lately my thoughts have been focused on the future Ð my future. Four graduate school applications have been fully submitted, only two more to go. Inside, I feel like IÕm about to graduate high school again, and the whole world is open to me again. All schools and states are possibilities; all programs lead me to an exciting future Ð in my imagination. Slowly, however, doubt begins to creep up on me. In this case, itÕs not doubt of my ability to choose a school and complete a grad program, but the doubt of whether or not itÕs the right decision to go at all.
Why? Why the doubt? IÕve already come to the conclusion that I cannot stay in my current job forever, and that I value intellectual freedom and the feeling that I am contributing to society in a way that eventually may leave a mark on the world. Unfortunately, warm fuzzy feelings do not pay the bills. A Ph. D. program is a 5 year commitment, with a high probability of 2+ years as a Postdoctoral Fellow just before getting a Òreal jobÓ. 7 years down the road is further than IÕve had to think. Ever.
After that, who knows what the future holds. The standard voices are speaking to me both internally and externally. ÒYou should be buying a house!Ó ÒYou should be traveling and having fun and partying and living your life now!Ó ÒYou should be dancing!Ó ÒJust get an industry job, or go work for a law firm!Ó ÒYouÕll be fine!Ó The voice that wins out every time is the one telling me to invest in myself, get a degree so IÕll have more options down the road. ItÕs a high price to pay, both in terms of dollars and hours. As rewarding as science is at times, it can be frustrating as well. Is it really worth putting so many years of my life into something that in the end might not pay me a great salary?
Maybe.
The problem with graduate programs in the sciences in general is that they train you to think scientifically, ask questions, and write grants. Basically you are groomed to become a university professor. The job options beyond that are not actively promoted, but they do exist, and they pay much better than academia, but would I still be happy? Only one way to find out, I suppose.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
December 12, 2005
I'm not eating that!
Tonight the roommate bought a pork loin from the "ehSuper ehStop and ehShop". She calls me to the kitchen saying, "Come look at what I cooked for dinner!" I walk in the kitchen and say, "I am NOT eating Horse Cock for dinner."
*giggles*
Feel free to offer up your best caption.
December 08, 2005
Not another broken iPod
My first iPod was the First Generation 10 GB model, right after it was released. I used it every day at work. I loved it. And then, it had that obnoxious battery issue that they're now famous for having. Luckily, I moved to NY and had access to an Apple Store. The SoHo store hooked me up with a replacement, and that lasted all of 6 months, and then the Huntington store replaced it again, due to freaky battery/restarting issues. And then, THEN, the Play/Pause button stopped working completely. I gave up and bought a refurbished 3G 10GB iPod, which I'm still using... until yesterday. It had been acting up, and the center select button was less than responsive. Then it quit registering, and it's a solid state device. I figure I'm screwed, again.
I'm kind of enraged that I've broken 2 of these gizmos so far, so I figure what the hell, it's broken and wont be fixed for free, so I'm cracking this thing open. I go on the web and find a really helpful video from the folks at Other World Computing that gave me step-by-step instructions to open the case. I didn't have their fancy little tool, so I used a piece of wedge shaped plastic we had in the lab. It's quite a piece of engineering inside that little thing. The HD is tiny, the battery is tiny, it's all teeny-tiny! And now they have a Nano?
I take out the HD and notice that the software actually still works, which was surprising. Cool! But, the button still doesn't work. I can't see anything that's obviously burnt out or damaged, so I rub my finger all over the inside of it, on all the little capacitors and chips and everything. The little box made a bunch of squeaky chirping noises, and I turned it over to find that the button works again! Wheee! So I put it back together and everything's happy now!
Kiiiiick-Aaaasssss!
December 06, 2005
Nor' Easter #1
As predicted, the north shore of Long Island received about 4 inches of snow. It's heavy and wet and will mostly melt into slushy mess during the day today, with our 38 degree high temperatures. I dug out my car and did some half-assed shoveling of the front porch and driveway. It wasn't really necessary, but I looked at it like a warm up for the predicted storm for Friday. I need good karma so I can get the heck outta dodge. I have places to be!
December 04, 2005
Bowl Game? What? Who?
*Godfather Theme on my Cell Phone*
>>>Josh Calling<<<
Hidden so Donor doesn't get spoiled...
December 03, 2005
For real?
This evening I'm chilling out at home, watching some TV and surfing the web. I read this blurb on Slashdot about the Forbes Fictional 15 richest individuals. Santa is #1, Daddy Warbucks is #2, etc... I start with Daddy Warbucks and it's got a fictional biography listing his education as: SUNY Stony Brook. Uh-huh, I'm sure.
December 01, 2005
Found Artifacts
I did find one other picture when freeing up hard drive space. I bet that very few people who read this blog have seen it before. If you have and you're out there, leave a comment and let me know. Shield your eyes because this photo is overexposed and scratched up.
November 30, 2005
History Time
I started to get this annoying message from my work computer today. Warning! Your Startup Disk is almost full!
What can I delete or backup to my external drive? I wish I had more than 30 GB internal here at work. I notice I've got over a Gig of stuff in a public folder under another user account... hrm... what's in here? A whole pile of stuff!!! Most of it photos and music and whatnot from my work computer in Iowa before moving to NY. I just couldn't resist posting this fun photo, taken by the lovely Wendy. It's from October 2002 when I was in Jamaica for the wedding of these fabulous kids. Sitting with me on the super-mega-ultra water tram-bamp-o-line is the sexy and not-yet-pregnant Diane. In April it looks like I'll be at another wedding there and I hope it's just as tram-bamp-tastic.
Also, I wish that web applications wouldn't crash right when I need them most. AARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!
November 29, 2005
It's that time of year again
Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone. I've managed to complete exactly no Holiday shopping thus far, after swearing last year that I would buy all my gifts in October. Such is life I suppose. Lately my minds has been all over the map, in some cases literally. This whole "personal statment" thing is really a sadistic torture exerscise. I just like science, I want to study it. I should already have a Ph.D. Just let me in damnit!!! Somehow I doubt that's persuasive enough. We had quite the Dog-and-Pony show today in the department, as my boss gave a big talk in recognition of his endowment *snickers* as the Memorial Something-Something Watermellon Chairman. Lots of rich folks being paraded through the lab, meaning I actually had to do experiments instead of write and work on applications. I need to puut some more happy, upbeat music on the iPod, since after my reset software re-load and complete wipeout I just added on the stuff I've been into recently - too much emo. But that Maroon 5 album... it's too too good, I'm still digging it. Must focus. Do not let yourself get distracted. Taaaapa-Taaapa Tappa.
1000 Bonus points if you can figure out the exact Manhattan location where this photo was taken. And if you were there it doesn't count, so shaddup!
November 27, 2005
"The Misson"
Did the subway somehow take me back in time? What is with the old cars on 72nd Street? Oh, wait, they must be filming a movie - it is New York City after all. The "No Parking" signs said the film was called "The Misson" which I hope is somehow misspelled.
Oh, and could I procrastinate writing my personal statments any more? I don't think it's possible.
November 26, 2005
Giving you the bird
As promised, selections from Thanksgiving dinner. Everything turned out just right and everyone was full by the end, except we still made room for the pecan pie. I would be remiss without mentioning that I was coached through the whole procedure over the phone by my mom. I'm so glad to have an earpiece for my cell phone.
November 24, 2005
Thank's for the Turkey
Tradition in my family requires that during Thanksgiving dinner everyone state at least one thing for which he or she is thankful. In celebration of the miracle that I cooked Turkey, Stuffing, Yams, Giblet Gravy, Cranberry Sauce, Biscuits, and Pecan Pie without burning anything, hereÕs my list for this year:
I am thankful forÉ
- My health, both physical and mental
- My caring, loving, helpful family
- My new friends I have made this year
- My international friends who open my eyes and challenge me daily
- My old friends (who continue to amaze me Ð I donÕt give you guys enough credit)
- My job, which I still enjoy after nearly 5 years
- My decision to move on from this job and go to graduate school
- My boss, who encourages me to do whatÕs right for me
- My washer and dryer, and dishwasher, yes they are truly luxury items
- My liver (my liver rules)
- Microbrewed Beer, so I can enjoy the flavor and get drunk
- Fresh Sushi, the most delicious food on the planet
- I am a Mac User
- My digital camera, so I can remember the blurry moments in my life
- Snowy Mountains, so I can ski and enjoy beautiful vistas
- Sandy Beaches, so I can try to tan my pasty white skin
- Hawkeye Sports, proving IÕm a crazed fan, since 1996
- Crazy New Yorkers, who amuse me so
- Old music videos on VH1 Classic
- Thousands of other thingsÉ. Life is good.
Dinner was complimented by a couple of veggie dishes from Naoko and beverages provided by the French contingent.
November 15, 2005
Fire Hydrant Rut
I'm all done with the GRE now. It went reasonably well, overall. I didn't do as well on the verbal section as I had expected based on the practice tests I took. Those giant words make my brain hurt. My quantitative reasoning skills, however, shined through and I did pretty well on that part. I also think I rocked the analytical essay portion, but humans are slow with the grading process. So, we wait. While waiting, I played around with photoshop and my fire hydrant fetish as of late. Can you tell which one is the correct color. This one is from some street in Chinatown, or maybe it was Little Italy. They're basically the same place anyway. These lack coveres, which BC says doesn't mean it's broken, because you turn on the thing from the pentagon on the top. So, there ya go.
November 14, 2005
George's Birthday Dinner
I'm taking the night off from studying, since my second practice test (after studying a lot) didn't go so well. To relax, I'll share a few photos from this past weekend in NYC. George's birthday was Saturday, and he treated us to dinner at Keen's Steakhouse. The service was impeckable and the food was delicious. Below are a few selected photos.
Group shot: Jeff, Dave, George, and I.
The Chateaubriand Steak (for two) which George and I split. YUM!
Apparently you're not supposed to eat it in one bite.
The place was decorated with over 20,000 pipes on the ceiling.
I almost forgot , they also had my favorite Single Malt Scotch, Glenturret.
November 11, 2005
Calling all Math Teachers
I scheduled myself to take the GRE. I have had some hellacious luck with realtime online scheduling this week. On Monday, I was trying to get tickets to see the Eddie Izzard in NYC this weekend. They even charged my credit card, but alas, I get no tickets (the charges did get reversed, but still). And then, today, I'm trying to schedule a test date and the link disappears as I click it. Thankfully my disgust with the whole real-time web reservation system in general prevented me from immediately reserving a December date, as any sane person would have done. As luck would have it, however, a glitch while trying to register for the December test date tonight (stupid flash animations in another tab dragging down Firefox) caused me to inadvertently close the window. Start over, and *poof* there are new November dates available.
It's on for November 15th. Now, I need to run out and have the quadratic formula tattooed on my forearm. I do NOT remember how to factor these equations. I also do not remember how to perform algebraic manipulations of radicals, or of fractions. And let's not even get to the parts with the triangles and circles and angles.... Oh... my head hurts....
October 31, 2005
Halloween Continued
After recovering from Friday Night's Halloween party, I caught the LIRR into NYC and eventually met up with George, Jeff, Dave, and Edgar for dinner. But first, I swung by the Apple Store in SoHo to check out the video iPods and laptops with brighter screens. I couldn't do a side-by-side comparison, but the new ones looked a LOT like the last model, although they're a bit cheaper. Maybe. MAYBE, if this TiBook dies I will pick one up, but I'd like to wait for the Intel chip laptops.
Saturday night we hit 4 bars and then I ate some form of curried street meat at about 2 or 3 AM. Love that daylight savings time change to add to the drunken confusion. And don't hate on the street meat. Like you've never had a F.G.E. (Fat Girl Episode, shamlessely stolen terminology). In fact, I think I have previous photo evidence of such activities.
After brunch on Sunday morning, which included Eggs, English Muffins, Bacon, Turkey Bacon, Sausage, Coffee, and Juice, we decided to get out and enjoy the weather. Not 2 blocks out the door, we encountered this 5 month old Boxer puppy in a Superman Costume. He was SO excited to get attention from us, as you can tell from the photo. The reason for the costume: An 80 dog costume party at the dog park.
Instead of checking out the doggie party, we took a leisurely stroll through Central Park. It was such a beautiful day, we sat a spell in Sheep's Meadow and then battled the tourists at the street fair in Times Square. Victoria Secret bras for $10. Get 'em while they're hot. Don't believe me? Check out the photos. Jeff and Dave headed back to DC on the infamous "Chinatown Bus". The rest of us continued our stroll and ended up in a Starbucks for almost 3 hours just chatting.
Then I met up with David and his friend Dev outside the Virgin Megastore and we nearly sprinted to the Belgian Beer Bar for a couple of drinks. Dinner followed at John's Pizza on Bleeker Street. I'd seen that place with huge lines before, and there was virtually none on Sunday - so we ate. This place has been voted the best pizza in New York. It was very good, with a crispy thin crust, but I almost felt like it was a bit burnt. If there was no line again, I'd probably go back, but I'm not waiting in line to eat there.
I would have loved to make it back to the city tonight for the parade, but it just wasn't happening between the issues at work recently, and the worst excuse for a flag football playoff game that anyone could ask for. Yeah, let's START the game at 5 PM after daylight savings time ends, that way no one can see you throw the elbows.
October 27, 2005
Get out the knives, kids.
Encarni, Naoko and I tore up the pumpkins tonight. I picked up a carving kit last week when I was stocking up on low-grade crack candy for the trick-or-treaters. Extremely sharp knives were my tools of choice in the past, so this was kind of a nice change. The little saws in the kit are extremely handy for the detail work necessary on the patterns the kit supplied. Yes, I used a pattern for my castle, although I tweaked a couple of things. Encarni used the template for the witch, and Naoko used an original design of halloween kitty (it even had a tail). Much photography ensued after the last chunk of pupmkin hit the ground. I hope they last until Monday, but I kind of doubt it.
This weekend I will be hitting one Halloween party, out in the woods like previous years. Creep-tacular. I have given in to my tacky-yet-hilarous and easy costume idea. You'll just have to wait and see. Saturday and Sunday I'll probably be in NYC, and Monday I'm going to miss the big NY Halloween Parade. So sad, I loved it the previous times I've gone. But now I have to be home for trick-or-treaters, and it's televised (out here anyway).
Happy Halloween Kids!!!!
October 20, 2005
If I Had A Million Dollars (or $340 Million)
Or as it is also known, The Wolfman Jack Memorial "I'm totally gonna win the lottery and do all this cool stuff with the money" post. How many times have I had this same telephone conversation? At least 10 times with Jack, probably the same number with Wendy. This time, the question was posed by Jeff Utech. At a bookstore in Coconut Grove in Miami a couple years ago, I thumbed through a book titled, "How to Win the Lottery and Still be Happy" (or something close to that). This book offered several bits of wisdom that I never would have thought of had I just seen my numbers flash on the TV screen when I won that amount of money.
First off, you cannot tell anyone. Not your wife, not your mom, not your best friend. Nobody. This has got to be the hardest part, because I'd be ready to explode with that kind of news. Second, hire an attorney and make him sign a non-disclosure agreement right away. Wait at least 3-6 months before having the attorney claim the prize money without using your name (you have up to 1 year in most cases). Third, Do not quit your job for 1 year (although I bet after a few months it would be ok).
The book also offered advice on how, after the initial shock wears off, smarter ways to reduce your tax burden and donate to charities without bringing a lot of publicity to yourself. One thing the book stressed is that it's hard to keep your family and friends on good terms after winning, because money changes things. Everybody thinks they deserve a piece of you, and folks will come out of the woodwork asking for a hand out. Imagine being called every day by dozens of charities, each deserving, and having to constantly tell them no (or some of them no, anyway).
I'd donate some serious cash to fund research on diseases such as diabetes and AIDS. The amount would have to depend on what's allowed with the tax code, but probably around 50% of the lump sum amount.
All that aside, after the dollar bills settle, and I've got a huge wad of cash (because obviously I'd take the lump sum) I would hire a financial advisor to help set me up. A team of financial advisors, actually. Preferrably led by Suze Orman (LOVE her!). It's been a pipe dream of mine to have homes in various fabulous locations around the world, so I would make some smart investments in places like Manhattan in a fabulous pentouse in a classical building with fantastic architecture, but completely modernized. In San Francisco I'd have a nice Victorian home made out of old redwoods. A comfortable flat in Seattle. I'd buy a nice big ranch in Jackson, Wyoming, and staff it to care for the horses and grounds. Finally, I'd buy a villa in Lake Como, Italy, for when I want to go pretend to be fabulous.
Instead of flying commercially, I'd have to become a member of something like Marquis Jet so I could collect people on a whim and jet off to fabulous worldwide events. From now on, I travel in style. I get myself a personal trainer and private chef, but no hair plugs. I'm gonna be rich AND hot.
One of the crazy things we end up talking about is buing some big house near the HMB practice field to house the Saxophone section. Also, completley re-do the practice field so it's level and there are no holes in which to twist your ankle. You know you've got to give back to your band geeks. Also, I'd have a private box at Kinnick stadium, and good parking place. I wonder if the hospital would let me land a chopper on the roof?
Now, when it comes to giving things to people you love it gets tricky because you must draw the line somewhere, and people will invariably get pissed off. But I'll try anyway. I'd pay off my family's debts. I'd buy them all fancy cars. Wendy gets a Mini Cooper S. Actually, everyone gets a Mini Cooper S. Except Jack, he gets a Harley and lessons on how not to die while riding it. If you've got a baby, he or she gets a college fund. If you are childless and fabulous, you get plastic surgery (if you want it). And somebody is gettin' a platinum grill, yo. Fo' Shizzle!
And I think I'd still keep my job.
Scary!!!
I tried for 4 hours tonight my MovableType setup to MT 3.2 (keep up with the Joneses... or the DeCoras as the case may be). And it ended badly. Luckily I learned my backup lesson from earlier this week, and neatly compressed all my old archived stuff. One quick command-line entry and we're back to where we were 4 hours ago. PHEW!
I may try again tomorrow, but if so I'm doing a completely fresh install and re-importing all my old entries. Excited yet? Yeah, me neither. This is the reason I only dabble in true computer geek-dom. 1 A.M. Time for bed.
Well, maybe a little eye candy for you. Did you think Iowa City was the only town with a dust buster (a.k.a. The Bionic Bus)? Think again!!!
October 13, 2005
Click. Click. Click. Click.
I can name that sound in one note. "The Click of Death" by Maxtor. Being sans laptop yesterday, I decided to fire up the old reliable G4 Sawtooth and burn a CD or two and look for some older photos for a friend who requested them. I was greeted with the horrible grey screen, and nothing more. Quoth the hard drive, "nevermore". Le Sigh.
After fighting for a while with jumper settings (thanks George), I managed to see that my extra backup drive was still ok, but NONE of the partitions on my main drive were showing up. And now you're thinking, "big deal, he's got it backed up for sure". You might be right, but my backup strategy has been, shall we say, less than extensively organized. I'm fairly sure I've got most (if not all) of my music backed up somewhere. Even if I don't, it's easily replaceable (thank you BitTorrent and Limewire and friends with copies). The thing that has me really nervous is my digital photos. I'm fairly certain that I went through and burned all of them off to CD, I just don't know where they might be. We're talking 3000+ photos here. They were all nestled gently in iPhoto, and now, I'm hoping that I was smart enough to copy that folder over to my other drive as a backup so it'll be easy to replace them.
So here's your disaster stimulated reminder to backup your digital files if you have things you don't want to lose and can't easily replace. Hopefully I haven't lost 3 years of NY memories to a bad HD and lazy backup practices.
I wanted to retire after graduation
I probably should have. According to CNN:Money, Iowa City, Iowa is one of the top 5 places to retire (in the US). Personally, I think I'd like to retire to a villa in Lake Como, Italy. Except I think they have less college football there.
October 11, 2005
Fall is here
And as Lewis Black says, "Fuck Fall!" Actually, I like fall. I like it a lot. College Football. Crisp evenings. Leeeaaaaves! I've been having a busy summer, and it's progressing into a busy fall. Halloween is almost here. Last weekend I went camping during a huge tropical downpour. It would have been easier to put up with the rain if there had at least been some exciting lightning shows to see. Oh the way home, we ate at a diner in Pennsylvania and as we were leaving we noticed some cats in the parking lot around back. And by some, I mean at least 10. One was the ugliest cat I think I've ever seen. Poor thing had a cleft palate and was all scratched up and scarred.
Luckily, there were cute little kittens hiding underneath the deck. Super cute. Hyper cute, even.
The weekends only get more busy from here on out. Every weekend is booked through Halloween, when David is coming to NY again. The Halloween parade is always fun, and I might have to miss it this year, since it's on a Monday. I'll do my best to be there, though. Just might not be in the cards this year, what with work and all. What does November hold?
In other news, I will be sans-laptop for a few days. The boss's daughter needs it until her new iBook shows up. So, annoying for me, I have to clean off all my... ahem... personal articles and let her take it to school for a couple of weeks. On the positive side, it's a good excuse to clean up my computer files and back everything up, and I'll get to play with a shiny new iBook for a couple of weeks. So, if I'm around less during the evening, you know why.
October 04, 2005
Simmer + Down + Now
Equals SimmerDownNow, so Simma Down Now! Or, if you prefer, 1 cup rice, 2 cups water, simmer! The photos are coming. I do like to crop/red-eye reduce and tweak my pictures before posting them, so they'll be up when they're ready. And they're not ready. Check back on Thursday.
I had a great time seeing everyone. I just wish it could have lasted a lot longer. More to come.
September 26, 2005
I fly on Thursday
Barring more acts of Mother Nature and her destructive forces of late, I'll be touching down at CID on Thursday afternoon. I plan to eat, frisbee golf, parade, beer band, tailgate, march, relax, and catch up with good friends. Plans are to crash at la casa de Wendy and party wherever I get invited. So if you've got plans for a get-together, I'm in town. That's all I'm saying.
September 15, 2005
What comes after Nano?
Saturday morning, of this most recent weekend past, I drove out to Orient Point and caught the ferry to New London, CT. The intention was to catch the fast ferry and take the free bus to Foxwoods Casino and meet George. Also, I wanted to watch the Hawks play, but we wont speak of that disgusting event.
Since I missed the noon ferry, I had to take the car ferry and then I drove back around to NY with George and stayed over. Sunday morning in NYC is now my favorite time in the city. You can park anywhere! I went to the Apple Store in SoHo to check out the new iPod Nano. It's incredibly delicious! Lust worthy! I almost bought one on the spot. Luckily I didn't, because the thing only syncs with USB 2.0 and all my machines are USB 1.1 damnit. It's smaller than a business card, and only as thick as a pencil. I want one in Black. Think about Christmas.
September 14, 2005
Stay a while, and Listen
Well, sometimes my best intentions of a long and excruciatinly detailed post never actually materialize. Instead of just succumbing to the pressue of my best intentions (like Wendy sometimes does) and not posting forever because of it, I'm just going to get something on paper (or, on the computer as it were). Indeed, it was a good weekend.
As Jenniffer and BC have already noticed (and commented, thanks kids) I've put up photos from both the Green Day Concert and the DCA Prelims. The concert was amazing. Jimmy Eat World opened up for Green Day and played just about 35 minutes of songs from their newest album and a few classics. They even played "The Middle" and I rolled my eyes at Donor and we enjoyed the rest of the show. I am not familiar with the band that opened for Jimmy Eat World, but they have a crazy squirrely drummer. I've been a fan of JEW's music for several years now, and they played "The Sweetness" and the whole stadium sang along. It's a cheesy gimmick, and it's been done, but in a huge stadium it was really cool. In between acts, some guy in the section across from us actually started the wave - for no reason. And the stadium went with it.
They eventually changed the stage to the full-on rock out configuration for Green Day, all while a drunken guy in a bunny costume stumbled around on stage. When Green Day did take the stage, they totally owned Giant Stadium. Owned it. Later on, Billie Joe said it was the largest concert they've played in North America. Killer! They played about half the songs from their album American Idiot, saving "Wake Me Up When September Ends" for the end. They also played a lot of songs from their earlier albums. It was amusing to have heard all the kids at the show sing along to the new songs, but fall silent during the classics. Yeah, they've been together 16 years, and you're only 10, kiddo.
For the encore, they played "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" which is a really emotionally moving song. And then there were fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks! They really had quite a big pyrotechnics budget for the show. Flames, raining sparks, and a huge disco ball. Actually, that was really neat. They had a bright enough spotlight on the huge disco ball that the entire inside of the stadium was lit up with moving lights. Might sound cheesy, but that's a big 'ole stadium and trust me it was cool.
I was stressing a bit over how to get to the Meadowlands sports complex over in East Rutherford, New Jersey since I was driving from Long Island. I decided eventually that it would be foolish to drive across the NY Metro area during rush hour and try to find the place and pay $15 to park there. Instead, I drove into NYC in the afternoon, took the subway to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and got a $9 roundtrip bus ticket. I spent 4 minutes in line to buy the ticket, and 2 minutes waiting for the bus to fill up. Once full, off we went. I thought for sure we would sit in traffic for a long time trying to get through the Lincoln Tunnel. Wrong! There are special bus lanes getting to the tunnel from the PABT, and we were there in 20 minutes! Getting back to NY was just as easy, wait in line 15 minutes, 20 minute ride back, 5 minutes on the Subway and I'm back on the Upper West Side, where George and Edgar generously put me up for the night.
Who wants to go to work after a night like that?! Not me, for sure so I slept in and then had a nice visit to the Museum of Modern Art. Actually, I was less impressed that I wanted to be. Where, oh here can I find some Salvador Dal’ in New York. MoMa has the tiny yet famous Persistence of Memory and the Met has a piece or two, but I am still not satisfied. They did have a Rubik's cube, and subway signs, and the classic clear crystal Bic pens. And that horrible Jackson Pollock mess. I did kinda like a few things, check out the photos from the end of the Green Day photo album.
Friday night - off to the campground. I drove to the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania to the campground, found Adam, and relaxed. I hadn't been camping in nearly forever. I think it was confirmation camp way back in the day, and that was in a cabin. I had to fix the air mattress in the tent, as it was a bit leaky, but other than that things went smoothly.
Saturday I left for Scranton, PA to watch the Drum Corps Associates preliminary competition with Donor and the Bulaga family. I was there early enough to park for free [I had your mom, I crawled inside, I parked my car for free!!!] and helped Donor watch the souvineer stand for a few minutes. For our efforts, we were rewarded with wrist bands allowing us field access (which we never used). We got some lunch, and some beers, and then settled in for hours and hours of drum corps. It was great. I needed my drum corps fix, and I got it!
The scary thing that happened, you ask? Oh that. During the second song of the Kilties performance, one of the horn players dropped on the field. This isn't unheard of in DCI, as sometimes people pass out but quickly recover. This guy didn't get up or show any movement at all after the song ended. Someone in the stands starts screaming that he fell down and one other horn player breaks formation (gasp!) to check him out. Several other people run on the field, the Drum Major puts the corps at parade rest and it's really clear that this guy is not moving at all. The corps marches off and 10 minutes later an ambulance arrives. The entire stadium watches him get shocked twice. It was very scary and we didn't know what happened after they took him away. After cleaning up and another corps marching, the Kilties came back on and performed the whole show again. Very admirable.
The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing in the woods. Bonfires. Dancing. Variety Shows. Y'know, the normal sort of campground peace and quiet. And then I drove back to NY, had dinner in NYC with George and Edgar (who loaned me their GPS which was incredibly handy) and Vinny. Then I got lost in Brooklyn and ended up taking way too many bridges to get home. The BQE is a strange an mysterious road, truly. And I almost got into a horrible accident when a minivan had a tire blowout right in front of me. ABS brakes saved my life, and no more scratches were put on my car.
September 08, 2005
Wonderful Vacation
This will be short, and I'll edit and lengthen it later, just wanted to say that my vacation was wonderful. Wonderful. WONDERFUL! So random, so relaxing, so much what I needed. I'm better now. I have pictures. Green Day rocked. ROCKED! The drum corps show was cool (yet a scary thing happened). The camping was perfect. Every star in the sky was shining, the days were warm and the evenings cool.
And now I'm back at work again.
August 29, 2005
Bowl-o-rama-rama
Friday night beers were followed by Friday night bowling. Sometimes bowling does crazy things to people. Some get violent. Some get sad. Some just have a bad attitude. What's my reaction, you ask? My legs tend to multiply.
August 22, 2005
Vegetable Garden
This year, after moving into the new house, we decided to plant a little garden. We planted 4 tomato plants, 2 pepper plants, a squash plant, some herbs, and 300+ Okra seeds. The squash died. Only 3 of the Okra seeds germinated and grew properly, thanks to Dad's wondeful seed store. The price was right. In June, things were going pretty slowly.
We kind of neglected things during the month of July, and the weeds took over. Gardening is not my thing, really. And tomatoes aren't my thing either. Peppers are ok. Okra, though, is one of the veggies that I do really like (albeit breaded and fried). Finally, we're here in August and things look a bit better. All that empty space exists because I was expcting to have more than 3 measly Okra plants. As it stands, I have harvested 4 pods. For those that aren't up on Okra, here's a closeup. Points of interest include the flower, which only opens for one day, in the morning. It quickly falls off and then the fruit starts to grow. You can see a young one on the right. A mature fruit is on the left side, kind of behind the flower. When it gets about 5 inches long and fills out in thickness it's time to cut it off. You only get one okra pod per flower, and there's only only flower per leaf. I'm hoping I can keep them in the fridge long enough to collect about 10 or so, enough for an appetizer.
Fear not, however, that while this garden expeiment has been interesting, my true food passion is using fire to burn dead animals. I loves me some steak and potatoes.
August 21, 2005
I need a break
The lab is wearing on me these days, and I think it's time for a break. I haven't gone on vacation at all this summer, which I guess I shouldn't complain about since I went skiing in March. I'm going to get away for 6 days at the end of the month, thankfully. In other news, the lab renovation is finished for the adjoining area, and the wall dividing the two was removed on Friday, much to the chagrin of everyone who currently occupies the space. We'd all like to keep our sanity, and instead, we get to deal with 3 labs worth of people moving in. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, but broken equipment is complicating my life. We've got 2 broken tabletop centrifuges, a dead fridge, a broken drying oven, and a gamma counter with computer issues. Just a week and a half until the US Open.
August 10, 2005
Get in my belly
Every once in a while, surfing the web brings me to a site that is completely honest in intent, but causes me to guffaw for several minutes. This is one of those sites. "Mommy! I want to sleep inside the giant beagle!" Please also note that you have to enter the room through the Beagle's butt. Only in Idaho, people.
Another site which I stumbled upon recently that I think is worth spreading around is the Museum of Bad Art or MoBa for short. The descriptions of the pieces are subtly hilarious, and some of the works are really startlingly bad. If I'm ever in the area I'll definitely have to check it out.
July 31, 2005
It's so pretty!
I was again in the city this weekend, hanging out with friends and watching movies and window shopping. Oh the things we saw! 
For one, another bejewelled item in a store window caught my eye. I can't remember which store we were near, but this little watermellon purse would go well with the bejewelled iPod Shuffle from a few weeks ago. Don't you think? Like, Totally, for sure.
I broke my old faithful Wenger Swiss Army watch a few weeks ago and haven't yet found a suitable replacement. I went to check out Barney's NY, but didn't find anything I wanted (or could afford) but I did try on a Mont Blanc watch that cost $3000. Seeing that I wasn't satisfied with mere trinkets, George takes me to Tourneau to shop for things I really cannot afford. Oh, the humanity! My Eyes were suffering from all the bling. We began at the lowest floor of the store, in the affordable section, and worked our way up. ALL the way up to the 4th floor. When the affordable section starts around $600, you can only imagine what they have upstairs. Downstairs I tried on a $10,000 watch by some company I'd never heard of. It was a little flashy for me. By the time we reached the top floor, we were being shown a Blancpain watch that ran a cool $80,000. It had automatic tourbillon winding, and it was made of platinum or dilithium crystals or something. The nice saleswoman removed it from the case and allowed me to hold this precious object, but that's as far as I got, even after I complimented her lovely eyes. Apparently my charms don't work on everyone's mom.
July 29, 2005
I can't get enough!
As if I need to promote Overheard in New York any more, but this made me guffaw in my chair at work.
There's a Keebler Elf Graveyard Up in There
A fat girl's belly is pooling over the top of her jeans.
Guy: Hey, check out her muffin tops.
Girl: Dude, those aren't muffin tops; they're a whole cake explosion.
--N train
Overheard by: Tina
No, I can't fix your computer
I actually scored as a low ranking computer geek, but thought I'd try to fight the system. See what it gets me.
July 28, 2005
What's a sport?
Warning: herein lies a rant.
I've had this discussion with several people over the years, but what qualifies as a sport? ESPN often shows Cheerleading, Bowling, Billiards, Dance Teams, and Jump-Rope Competitions. Now these all require some physical exertion (well, except maybe billiards). I'm all for diversity of sport on ESPN. I'd really like to see them air DCI Finals, at the very least. It's at least as much of a sport as Billiards or Cheerleading. Tonight, to add to my disgust (and inspire this post) ESPN aired the US Open of Competitive Eating, sponsored by Alka Seltzer. How the HELL is this a sport? HOW!?! And if this qualifies, please can I get some Drum Corps International coverage?
Luckily this year they're showing DCI finals on the big screen in theatres around the country, if you're lucky enough to live near one. I think I'm going to watch it in NYC, rather than trying to drive up to Boston and sit in the nosebleed section. It's this time of year when the humidity and temperature are both oppressive and I think back to when I was forced to march around outside every day, getting a tan, and getting skinnier every day. Where's count 5? Indeed. The smell of diesel fuel, the fire ants, the crappy truck food. The stink of the tour bus. If I had some photos from that summer I might be inspired to scan them in and post them, but they're all at my parent's house.
Ok, so this rant turned into a trip down memory lane. I'm still mad I can't watch DCI on ESPN, though.
And another thing... the Spaniards have arrived again! OlŽ!
July 25, 2005
Jogging for Clarity
I've been jogging regularly now for about 7 weeks. I go at least 3 times a week, and I've come to enjoy the time it gives me to process my thoughts, like how my Mom cancelled her trip to visit me because she wants to have some beach time in North Carolina. So rude, these kids and their unreliable changing of plans.
We played softball today, and beat the No. 1 team in our league. Due to an injury (our pitcher got hit in the ankle by a ball) I had to leave my normal, designated hitter position and suck it up in right-center field. There's a reason I hated t-ball when I was a kid. Just let me hit singles. Seriously. But our team is 7-3-1, so with any luck we'll make the playoffs.
Friday I had an out of town visitor and went dancing all night at a dance club on Fire Island. I haven't been out all night dancing since I was in England. It was kind of crazy, yet fun. We got to hang out in the DJ booth in the club and then sat around talking as the sun came up, since it's NY law that all clubs must close by 4 AM.
Saturday, we saw 2 films at the Stony Brook Film Festival. Smile was a film about surgeons who perform plastic surgery in third-world countries to repair children with cleft palates. I loved it. It was very sad and touching and in the end heartwarming without being cheesy. The director and the lead actress were present at the screening and stuck around to answer questions for 30 minutes after it was over. The next film was called My Tiny Universe, a dark comedy about a suicidal actor who finds the cell phone of a big Hollywood producer. It was a little too fast paced and crazed to be called a fantastic movie, but if you like dark comedies you'll love it. The movies were also accompanied by short films. The one of note was called West Bank Story, and is a musical about 2 competing falafel stands in the West Bank. One is run by Jews, the other by Palestineans. It had crazy costumes, fun dancing, lots of visual gags and hilarious lines. At only 21 minutes long, it was the perfect length and I laughed so hard I nearly peed myself. If this film ever gets released anywhwere, or is available online, I highly recommend it.
And now. I need to get some sleep, because I'm still trying to catch up from the weekend.
Oh, one more thing. At one point we went to Starbucks and the total came to $6.66. The kid behind the counter gasps and says "I've never EVER seen that before". Then Adam says, "See! See! PROOF that Starbucks is Evil." And the kid responds, "Yeah, we'll deny it."
July 20, 2005
Holy Guacamole!
Apparently it's monsoon season on Long Island. Forecast is for torrential downpours of biblical proportions, for the next 20 minutes. Look out for the mini-tsunamis rolling down the storm drain-free avenues. Add to that temperatures of 85 degrees and it's been a hot steamy foggy few days, and not in a good way. I forced myself to go for a jog Monday night, thinking it would be pure torture, running through the fog as steam rises up off the asphalt. And it was thick outside. The fog had a nice quieting effect on all the normal noises of the evening so I could barely hear cars on nearby streets or the dull hum of air conditioners, even the crickets seemed quieter. The lightning bugs put on a good show, so I actually enjoyed my jog even though I was drenched after about the third step out the door.
The jogging was necessary after eating so much guacamole this weekend. My friends George and Edgar came to visit for a BBQ on Saturday. We ended up watching WAY too much Sex and the City on DVD, and they taught me how to turn avocados into guacamole. Yummy! We also grilled sausages and pork chops, since I've finally figured out the subtle nuances of my charcoal grill with the charred wood instead of the standard Kingsford briquettes.
Good food, good friends, good conversation... all in all it made for a great weekend, in spite of mother nature.
July 14, 2005
Rare Form
To those fans of The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart in particular: Watch the July 13 episode of The Daily Show. Jon interviews Bernard Goldberg, the author of "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America" and completely decimates him. He's just a sharp, intelligent, well-researched interviewer, and Mr. Goldberg doesn't even realize what hit him until just before the commercial break. Catch it if you can, the interview is a classic example of exposing someone with humor.
And while we're on the topic of the Daily Show, yesterday they devoted the entire episode to the Karl Rove story. It was a thing of beauty how they took all the past edited clips from White House press conferences and showed exactly how the government blatantly LIED when asked specific questions. And lucky for us, the press corps seems to have learned how to ask a pointed question and rake someone over the coals.
But seriously, go set your VCR to tape the rerun from Tuesday, and hopefully it'll be available online soon.
July 12, 2005
Lines I need to remember
Stolen from Overheard In New York:
Putting Up Buildings, Tearing Down Builders
Construction guy #1: Hey, pretty boy! Whatcha got under that skirt?
Guy in skirt: Your girlfriend's fantasy.
Construction guy #2: Oh, shit. He got you there, dude.
--Broadway & 39th
July 07, 2005
Sync Damn You!
Everybody needs a bedazzled iPod Shuffle, don't you think?
In other news, Digital cable is nice. You get lots of extra channels, supposedly in "digital quality". I'm not exactly convinced that's a good thing really. Often times our Optimum iO Cable gives some nasty compression artifacts in the video feed. I don't really see this as an improvement from the slight snow or picture ghosting from analog cable, especially because the video becomes unwatchable instead of merely a little grainy or noisy. Today I noticed yet another problem while watching MTV Hits (yeah, I still watch music videos). I've seen the Mariah Carey video "We Belong Together" about 100 times now, only today the audio and video are completely out of sync, as are the next 10 videos. Not off enough to make it funny, but off enough to make it annoying. And also, this is just an MTV Hits thing, they'll get the song info completely wrong. The station must be completely run by interns. VH1 Classic, however, was good to me tonight. Who out there has seen the video for "Give up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" by Parliament Funkadelic?
Still working the kinks out of the blog design, step by step. Links, styles, banner; check check check. Dealing with it after work mostly, since the weekends this summer are filling up fast. Dinner parties, lab parties, visiting friends, visiting Spaniards, visiting parents, and hopefully at least a short getaway for me. Perhaps the NC beach at some point. Oh, and the US Open is coming up. It's one of my favorite things about summer in New York.
Whadda Ya Think?
I was informed today that, "We're all tired of your clouds." So, in the spirit of changing weather patterns and switched off air conditioners I've finally spent my evening revamping things around here. I opted to go for a wider layout than before, because I think it looks better, and a lot of monitors are widescreen. So if you're still stuck in 800x600 hell (or worse... 640x480), it's time to step into 2001 and get a setup that lets you do a minimum of 1024 or 1248 pixels wide.
But if it really bugs you, I'll try to work something out. The clouds are gone, the green grass of summer is in. For now.
July 05, 2005
Object Lust
My new camera does all kind of cool tricks. It's a Canon SD500. Basically I upgraded my S230 by selling it and buying a new one, and I'm loving the extra megapixels (if not the file sizes). I figured after 5000 photos I could justify a new camera. Check out this Bullfrog I photographed while golfing 2 Sundays ago.
Now see how far you can crop in! I know, the pixel sizes don't correspond exactly, but you get the idea.
Now I just need a bigger hard drive. I love satisfying my techno-lust and pulling ahead in the technology arms race.
July 04, 2005
I love a Parade!
In my ever arching quest to do experience everything NYC has to offer, I decided it was time to finally see an entire Gay Pride parade, and what better location than the gayest street in America: Christopher Street. I just followed the people with the rainbow flag "recruiter" T-shirt off the train and eventually looped around the block enough times to get a spot to watch the spectacle. And, as an aside, the NYPD really has figured out how to manage huge crowds and block streets and basically all that. The main side effect is that you cannot cross the parade route, which makes life tricky if you're trying to meet people on the other side, but that was an old story from Halloween... anyway.
I sideled myself into a spot amongst a flock murder coven group of Puerto Rican lesbians. That turned out to be a great decision first because they were hilarious and crazy, and second because they were all 5'4" and I could totally see over their heads.
Opening the show was the NYPD, as always, but right behind them were the bikers, and they were a great opening act. Lots of noise and hooting and whistling. Then came the active duty officers and other official people, followed by the politicians. Hillary was in the house. I bet her SS officers really loved all the craziness. The costumes of some of the participants were really outrageous. Others were almost non-existant. Some didn't make any sense, like the guy who was go-go dancing for Jesus.
They had so many ethnic group marching groups, too. I didn't really expect that, but places like Peru and Columbia really put on a good showing. Nothing compared to Brazil, though, especially in number of people. There were marching bands, color guards, twirlers, cheerleaders. Oh, the cheerleaders were blasting Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" to do a routine. It was worth the whole trip just to hear a whole street full of people, at least 5 blocks ahead of the speakers, unsolicited, start shouting "The shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!" Love it.
Lots of companies had floats, like Altoids, Delta Airlines, HSBC Bank, Starbucks (who were throwing out purple Lance Armstrong bracelets that said Starbucks on them - shameless). The common theme among corporate floats were muscled guys in speedos shaking their business. You get what you pay for, apparnetly.
Towards the end the costumes seemed to shrink. Tops started coming off. Leather men in straps not much else were everywhere. And then the most outrageous costume ever walks by. Dude is tattooed, and is wearing one sock, and flip flops. And that's it. And he had a flag stuck in his butt. If you need a visual image you'll have to go all the way to the end of my posted photos and gawk.
After the parade I was getting some food in the marketplace and carnival food section and just walking about. Oh yeah, I was wearing my Utilikit, and wearing a shirt saying "God of Biscuits". So I'm hanging out on a side street, relaxing and finishing off my meal when I get approached about the meaning of my shirt. Apparently its meaning was unclear, and they had postulated that I wanted to either fart on someone, or be farted on (something about air biscuits being a name for farts?). One other random guy (I think he was drunk or high or something) comes up out of the blue with a big finger pointed at me and says, "Pauline's Biscuits, right? You know Pauline? Oh my Gawd." To which I legitimately cannot respond. I'm then berrated about some show on Food Network and how Pauline makes the best biscuits.
Luckily that passed, and I spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, explaining to people about the shirt. If you're still clueless, go listen to Eddie Izzard in "Dress to Kill". After standing on pavement for over 5 hours, my back was screaming at me, so I decided it was time to head home. Met some fun new people, and got a lot of photos with my new camera.
June 24, 2005
Got a Blog?
It only takes 15 minutes. C'mon, be a statistic. Join the bell curve. All the cool kids are doing it.
June 23, 2005
Oh, Dios Mio!
The Fury. The Storm. The Spaniards. They are here. My roommate has 4 relatives visiting from Barcelona, and kids, it's a trip. I've met her parents before, but not her aunt and her cousin. Good people, all in all, but there's a language barrier. I know a fair amount of Spanish (well, enough to not feel retarded, anyway), and in total they know a bit of English but it's just phrases and stuff. Sooooo, yeah... [and yeah, I split that damn infinitive, so bring it, grammar police]
Day 1: The arrival. I know they are planning on getting in very late, but I'm up until 1 or so anyway. I finally decide to go to bed, knowing full well that just as I do so, they'll walk in. Hello, and, goodnight.
Day 2: Let's go shopping. Picture it, Sicily, 1937... wait... no... enough. They have generously offered to buy us patio furniture and a grill. Sweet! So we go to Lowes, where I had already picked out what I wanted. Loaded it up, paid for it... couldn't fit it in the car. Bollocks! Really, it's tough to fit a table and 4 chairs in a small sedan. I was tempted, and tried to tie everything to the roof of my car with twine, but at the last moment decided that it could only end badly for me, so we left the stuff at Lowes. I'd return the following day to get it. It looks pretty decent.
Day 3: "How do you say 'Texas Hold'em' in Spanish?" I still don't know. But it was fun to try and explain it with gestures and grunts and made-up words. The flop = El Flop. The Turn = La Vuelta. The River = El Rio. We didn't actually play with money, and technically I won, but it was because it was so damn late and we all just wanted to finally get to sleep. But not before I tried taking all the play money.
Day 4: My contribution to Spanish Culture. I got home from work, and went for a jog, and then decided it would be a good idea to assemble the grill. Thankfully, "the storm" was out sightseeing and I had a little bit of time to read the instructions (that were only in English), and get started. I had it halfway put together when everyone walked in and began 'helping'. I have a hard enough time at work when everyone is supposed to be able to speak English, but this was just insane. No one teaches you any of the vocabulary words necessary to put together anything while you're in high school. I learned shirt, cat, table, and to run. I did not learn, wrench, screw, nut, bolt, warming rack, or 'ouch that fucking hurt!'. Luckily, the word "Fuck" transcends all cultures. It's like math.
Eventually, we manage to finish assembling the grill in the dining room. And then? And then, it wont fit out the back door! So we have to partially disassemble it and reassemble the damn thing outside. Can we eat yet? Kinda. Fire it up. I purchased the fancy charcoal that isn't briquettes, but is charred wood and it got really hot really fast. And then it died. So I had half cooked chicken and sausages. Sucks. Thank god for microwaves. I re-fired the grill, and got it supa-dupa hot, and then we were in real business. I guess even grills have learning curves. Want to see the grill in action?
Anyhoo, so we're joking around and eating and having beer and wine and meat-on-a-stick, like you do. I keep hearing a lot of "el numero uno, or el numero dos" comments about where people went and finally my curiousness takes over.
"What's all this numbero dos shit they keep talking about?"
"Oh, well, remember when you told me about when you go to the bathroom and what is a Number 1 and a Number 2? I told them that, and they like it, so they think my father went to have a number 2 and that's why it's taking him so long."
"You're kidding..."
"No, they like it!"
I laughed so hard I almost fell off the deck.
June 16, 2005
Too damn true
Many times while wandering the streets and subways of New York City, I overhear really odd things that I sometimes feel that other people might find amusing. Thankfully, there is already a website for that. overheardinnewyork.com. I offer you a sample:
Fat Eating Fat: Irony or Hate Crime?Fat lady #1: Excuse me, could you move over?
Thin woman: Well, I can't move over anymore.
Fat lady #1: Excuse me, could you move over?
Fat lady #2: There is no way you're going to fit in that space.
Fat lady #1: If you moved over I could. I'm not fat like you.
Fat lady #2: Not only are you fat, but you're crazy. You think I'm fat? Get away before I eat you.--E train
June 14, 2005
Innocent?
So, yeah, MJ is not guilty. Umkay, fine. But those supporters of his outside the courthouse are crazy, with a capitol RAZY! Check it.
[link borrowed from many other blogs]
June 13, 2005
Friday Evening
Usually after work, several of us from the lab head to John Harvards for a drink and dinner and to bitch about... well life in general. Well, this Friday we went to someone's house for a backyard BBQ. It was a really, really nice time. I mean, when was the last time that you got drunk and climbed a tree? And in sandals as well!
In other, lamer news, my garden is growing. I have Okra! Photos to come when I don't need a microscope to capture them on digital film... not that I have my new digital camera yet. Stupid Dell.com has it backordered until the end of the month. At least it was a good deal, but possibly could evaporate if it's not in stock.
June 03, 2005
This is why we can't have nice things
Don't you hate it when shit happens? I do. Today, shit happened to me. Shit in the form of a small accident on the wonderfully overcrowded parkways of the great state of New York. I sure was glad I was following at a reasonably absurd distance of 4 car lengths at 45 MPH when I had to slow down due to traffic. Then some genius fucktard decides he'd like the electrons of his car to occupy the same space that MY car's electrons were currently occupying. Without a signularity, they repelled each other with great force, but not without disrupting the fiberglass makeup of my bumper.
Look. Look what he did to my bumper!
Yes, I'm fine. Yes, it could have been much worse. Yes, it was probably inevitable with the way people drive around here. Yes, he has insurance. Yes, I will be getting it fixed. First estimate is at 1 PM today. My car is only a year old (well, to me anyway) and this happens. Ironically, the dealer who sold it to me actually called me up last night to check on how everything is going with it up until now. CURSES! BALLS! GRRRRAAAAAAAWWWWWW! Great, now my throat hurts. Can I get insurance money for throat pain due to screaming about an accident?
Update: I got an estimate. It's not that bad, they can fix the damage without replacing the bumper for under 5 bills, so I'm fairly sure the guy will just pay me off and I wont have to deal with any insurance companies. Fingers crossed, kids.
June 01, 2005
Shout Out
This one goes out to my homey B.C. who wasn't feeling very well this past week. Feel better soon, and stay out of that E.R.
Word.
May 25, 2005
You're so trashy
Yesterday driving on one of the main divided, 4-lane semi-highways (with stoplights) I pulled up behind a big white Cadillac Escalade. The Escalde is my second least liked automobile on the road, second only to the H2. I'm mildly annoyed to simply be stuck behind this beast of a SUV. We pull up to another light. And another. The next light is about to change, and I clearly see a bottle of Nesquick choclate drink come out of the drivers side window, bounce off of a blue Honda Accord, and roll back into my lane.
"The jackass in the $60,000 Escalade can't be bothered to find a fucking trashcan?!" I actually say aloud in my car. For a split second I considered getting out of my car, picking up the litter, and throwing it back thru this jerk's window. Then the light turned green.
Who litters in this day and age? WHO?!?
May 22, 2005
Thank you for calling Movie Phone
I almost rolled off the couch to go see Star Wars Episode III at 12:01, 12:05, 12:11, 12:16, or 12:23 AM early Thursday morning, but laziness prevailed and I waited until Friday night. Luckily a few people were still in costumes. One kid had a complete Vader getup on. Stupid kids showing up at the 10:15 showing. Admittedly, IÕm not the biggest Star Wars fan in the galaxy but I love seeing these big movies on the opening weekend.
Don't click below if you don't want to read spoilers.
April 23, 2005
Finally, they're posted
After such a long wait I have finally posted the photos from Kirk and Ann's wedding. Sorry it took forever, the hard drive on my laptop was completely full (of .mp3s and digital photos). So I archived a bunch of stuff and posted the compiled set of mine and Wendy's photos. Go on and have a peek.
April 06, 2005
Quit Yer Bitchin'
Ok, by request, photos of my new place before and after new carpet and new paint. I selected the paint color based on the blue carpet. Since they installed this mediocre brown grid pattern carpet it looks less awesome, but whatever. The plan now is to buy a living room set and some chairs for the dining room. The Sampsonite folding chairs just don't cut it. Oh, and curtains will be procured when I'm home this weekend. See all ya'll IC kids soon. Call me.
March 28, 2005
Moved In
Sunday was moving day, and all my belongings have semi-safely been relocated to my new house. Big plusses of the new place include: big rooms, decent kitchen, deck, big backyard, close proximity to work and new carpet. Other features include: a busybody batshit crazy landlady with a cool husband, brown carpet in grid formation (photos to come), ugly light fixtures, and a bathroom with fake wood panneling! Seriously, it only needs a Velvet Elvis to complete the look. Maybe some orange shag bathmats.
I'm without internet and cable tv for a while so if you want to get to me, please resort to the telephone. I'm already sick of unpacking.
March 07, 2005
Old World Romance
What's poppin'? What's crackin'? My back, actually, as I was contorted putting blue painters tape on the trim and ceiling in my new bedroom. I can't really express how pleased I am to be moving into an actual real person house. It's about time I felt like a human again. I guess functionally I'm getting a chance to "play house" for a while. I really wanted to buy, but there were too many risk factors and my time horizon isn't quite long enough to make it worth my while. Plus, this house is very close to work and will facilitate easy entertaining. Backyard parties complete with Bocce Ball and lots of vino. Apparently there will be plenty of pasta and vino in our life, because the family that owns the house is Italian. And all the relatives live within a 1 mile radius. Including uncle Vito. I shit you not. Luckily, the husband is laid back and awesome and has a great sense of humor. Plus he fixes stuff.
The entire place was painted the color "Bone", of which I am not a huge fan. The landlady gave me money for paint, and apparently my color sense kicked in. I may not be able to dress myself, but can I select wall colors. Celing went back to white, walls in a creamy light yellow called "Old World Romance", and the trim in a semi-gloss white. It looks great, but it's taking a while to do 2 coats of everything and let it dry and tape off everything in between times. I'm sure those of you who paint know the deal, and it's not really that bad, except I had to fix some holes in the ceiling.
Top all this off with a cancelled bachelor party that was supposed to be in Chicago last weekend and my upcoming week in Seattle/Whistler it's a freakin' busy March. Fun, but full. Usually I have plenty of sittin' on my ass time, but this month not so much. The PS2 will have to stay off for a while longer. Plus, I'll be back in IC the weekend of April 9, pencil that in if you haven't already. I just realized that my trip to Washington will put my total US States visited total up to 45. It'd be cool if I can complete the set by the time I'm 30, but something tells me that's not realistic.
Ok, I have to go wash the white and yellow spots off my bald head.
February 20, 2005
You can't throw me out, I'm leaving!
Sometimes a simple relaxing trip to the city to view public art can take an unexpected twist. All seven of us met for lunch on the upper west side at a quiet Thai restaurant. Finally just before 2 PM we wandered into Central Park to take in The Gates. It was free, so I figured it was worth a trip to check it out. The plan was to follow the Gates with either the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Natural History Museum. I opted to stay in the park and walk around with the throngs of other people. Everyone else headed off.
I saw a LOT of Central Park. Strawberry Fields, The Shakespeare Garden, Belvedere Castle, the Lawn, the Summit, etc... The Gates in and of themselves are hardly interesting. It's just a bunch of orange (or saffron) vinyl arches with a big sheet of nylon fabric hanging from them. I don't think the point of the art installation was to put up the arches and have them be a work of art all alone. The art is the fact that tens of thousands of people are in the park in February. People were laughing and kids were playing and everyone was enjoying the sunny yet cold day. I've never even seen that many people in the park in the summertime. I had a nice chat with a couple who took my photo, and then I watched a woman wearing leather pants and a fur coat get shouted at by an anti-fur freak. She handled that better than I ever would. I wonder if this girl really expected to change this woman's mind about fur by harassing her while she plays with her dog in the park.
After the park, I went to have a drink and wait for everyone else to meet back up from their respective museums. We were sitting at the Raccoon Lodge drinking $2 Sam Adams and the French Foreign Legion (aka, the post-docs in our lab) show up and we have sushi for dinner. A LOT of sushi. Love it.
We split up again when the French headed home, and the three of us who remained decided to go out to a bar/restaurant where Bob and E had been before. We walked into the bar portion and after waiting a while we sat ourselves at a porch-swing equipped table. It was an odd seat, rocking and all. E's feet couldn't even touch the ground. After a drink we decided we'd rather move on and asked for the bill. $60!? The Fuck?! So we called the waiter, who called the owner, who got the hostess and we argued about how they actually have to tell you in advance if there's a $10 Cover charge. She didn't get it, and I wasn't budging. We were about half a step away from getting the police when she finally just threw us out. We didn't even pay for the drinks, and we were actually on the street before we realized what happened. Now I can check off another item on my "List of things to do before dying": Get kicked out of a bar.
We went to an unremarkable bar after that, and then got on the LIRR and headed back home.
February 14, 2005
Is it Singles Awareness Day Again Already?
Happy Hallmark Holiday everyone! Even I was suckered into buying stupid heart-shaped candy boxes, such is the weakness of the consumer society I suppose. I'm wearing black to honor the occasion, once again. I also found this little gem in the comments on Slashdot. That'd do it for me.
Yesterday was a great day, unlike today's grey skies and threatening forecast. It was very sunny and fairly mild for this time of year. I went house shopping and saw some very interesting places. The numbers still boggle my mind. $350,000 for a house built in 1922 with original wallpaper and old man funk? No, thanks. This particular house had a mysterious pit dug out in the basement, which dropped the floor 2 extra feet. The listing agent said it was because the guy who lived there was a competitive bodybuilder and needed the extra height to lift weights over his head. I suspect it's where they kept the gimp.
In driving around searching for homes yesterday I also saw a part of the island I've never been to before. Lake Ronkonkoma is a moderately-crappy lake, with some pretty weak beaches. It was completely frozen over due to all the sub-zero weather so we walked out onto it and noticed people were sliding about at the other end on some sort of boatlike contraption equipped with runners and a sail. It actually looked really fun but we didn't have time to check it out, and I was sans-camera so you don't get to see any pictures.
At the end of the day we saw a house that was pretty nice, built in 1977 and more to my taste. Price tag: $379,000. That's insane. The house was basically in the same type of neighborhood and Donor's place, with 1 fewer bedroom and no basement. No freaking basement! Oh, right, they don't get tornados here. Hopefully I can find a mobile home that I can afford.
February 10, 2005
Go Ahead - TRY and Upgrade
Well, as you can pretty obviously see, I've completely horked by blog template. This is all because I upgraded to MT Version 3.15. Actually, the upgrade was pretty straightforward and really not that big a hassle... except I wanted the more slick stylesheet that comes with it, and well... this is the bloody ugly result. I'll get to it. Hopefully.
Advice to those who see weirdness in their movabletype interface when they first load it: Clear Cache. Fixed my problems. The upgrade works, but you've got to deal with all your old templates and such.
Update: Ok, I put my old stylesheet back. I'm mostly understood how it worked, and this new one I have no clue... so I'll deal with this later.
February 09, 2005
Gettin' Hot in Herre
It only took 2 months of complaining, during the coldest months, to actually get my own thermostat installed. As you can see, it's quite ugly. I will not complain since now I am warm. Opening the door to my apartment on Monday evening I was greeted to a warm blast of 75 degree heat in my face, which was a bit much. I settled on 68 degrees as comfortable for winter. What a concept, not shivering at home!
Since I can't be completely happy about anything, please note the crappy patch job on the right side of the thermostat. Thanks for that attention to detail, jerkstore.
In other news, another move is impending. Looks like I'll be back to having a roommate, which will allow me to have an actual nice apartment, rather than living in basements and garages and being a general second-class citizen.
One other thing as pleased me about living here recently. I bought my plane ticket to Seattle for a March ski trip to Whistler, BC. Total ticket cost after taxes: $194.60. On the way there it's a direct flight, return is via ORD, as per usual. How odd is it that I can fly across the country for $100 less than it costs to fly into CID or MLI. Also, I'll be back in the IC area around the second weekend in April for a wedding. Social secretaries start your pencils.
January 30, 2005
Still Cold
Yesterday morning I got up early (well, early for a Saturday) and drove to my apartment to let the plumber inside to fix the heat. He was 30 minutes late. Then, after 15 minutes he started off on a big diatribe about how this was a big job to put in a thermostat and add zones and something something watermelon. I instantly translate this into: you're not getting heat today. I come back at 5 PM to check everything out. Indoor temperature at 5:30 PM Saturday, 14¡C. That's about 57.2¡F. Not acceptable. I've really got to have a talk with the landlords when they return from Florida today.
January 24, 2005
A Little Bit Better
I woke up this morning feeling pretty crappy again, but after my stomach started growling I decided it was probably because I hadn't really eaten anything in two days. Morning TV really has nothing to offer. After a mid-morning nap, my stomach was growling so I took that as a good sign to eat something. I chose soup. Seems like I'm finally getting better.
At least the Australian Open is on to keep me entertained. Listening to Dick Enburg comment on Rafael Nadal's fashion statement was great. Apparently he's going for the Hobbit pants look. And one note to Alicia Molik: pick a skirt that shows less ass-sweat - thanks.
I even managed to muster up enough energy to dig out my car. It's freakin' cold outside. They told me winters here were mild. Apparently not always. I guess this makes a nice segue into a diatribe about how any amount of snow completely cripples the northeast, but that's been done before. Just know that it started snowing on Saturday at noon, and lasted until Sunday at about 7 am. We got 15 inches or so. That means that the snow plows had 24 full hours to clear all the roads after the snow stopped. All area schools were still cancelled on Monday.
Somehow I managed to get out and pick up some Gatorade and fruit snacks. As someone who likes spicy food better than bland food, it's very annoying to eat only bland food.
January 23, 2005
Yeah Yeah
Ok, fine. It's 4:40 AM when I'm starting this entry. It's snowing like crazy outside (still) with no signs of stopping. I can't sleep because I'm sick. I've got the most torturous stomach ache, nausea, and "green-apple quick step" I think I've ever had. It's probably a case of viral gastroenteritis, but it is not fun. Food Poisioning never looked so good. So while I sit here in pain, in between trips to the bathroom, I guess I'll update ya'll.
Mostly the only news I have is about my fairly crap-tacular apartment. Remember when I was living in the swank house with the jacuzzi and the steam shower? Yeah, I miss it too. My converted garage apartment has turned out to be the worst place I've ever lived - even worse than the moldy basement. Let the complaining begin. First, it's freezing in here. Apparently they didn't actually use any insulation when they built it, and my heat is tied in with the rest of the house. Since I don't have my own thermostat, I freeze. When I wake up in the morning it's usually about 52 degrees or so. At the warmest, it'll get up to 68, but immediately start cooling off again. Complaints to the landlord have fallen on mostly deaf ears. Apparently they're not in the business of actually fixing problems with their rental units.
I finally got an extra outlet put in, because the whole place was operating on one circuit in the breaker box. That caused the circuit breaker to trip if I wasn't really careful. How careful? Well, to use the microwave I had to turn off every light in the place, and turn off the TV/stereo/whatever. Vacuuming was the same way, so I could only do that during the day. I initially complained about this in August. The outlet was installed the second week in January.
The pane of glass in my window isn't sealed, so I'm sure I'm losing heat that way, not to mention that the frame of the window leaks every time it rains. I've been waiting for them to paint and fix tiles in the bathroom for almost as long as I've waited on the electricity.
And my landlords are in Florida on vacation.
As it rolls around to February and the rent comes due again I increasingly feel like I should withold part of the rent until they at least make sure my apartment will be a comfortable temperature. Guess I should have insisted on a lease.
January 09, 2005
Post Holiday Holiday
Does anyone care that I'm hardly posting anymore? Sometimes I read so manhy blogs that I forget to put new content on my own. Sounds like most people had a nice holiday season. I stayed here on Long Island, went to several dinners and cocktail hours and it was a stuffed tipsy fun time. New Years brought my sister here for a visit. We are very different people and it makes me wonder a lot what happened in our upbringing to make us so very different. She was all about shopping for purses and shoes in NYC. Not that she has any money to buy things. I only took the minimal days off from work to kind of relax, but being at home in my apartment kind of sucks since I have very little heat. Therefore, I've been working a lot, trying to get my new protein affinity project going.
Tonight I'm seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. I would post a link to their website but it seems to be down, so google it yourself. And then more hard work early Monday.
In other news, Anyone want to come skiing at Whistler, B.C. Canada from March 12-20. Lemme know. And other other news, I still haven't mailed Christmas Cards, because I'm unorganized with addresses. It'll get there, hopefully before I go skiing in March.
December 22, 2004
A White Pre-Christmas
Sunday night it snowed about 3 inches around here, which of course meant that my Monday morning commute would be a disaster. It only took me 40 minutes to make my usual 15 minute trek, so that wasn't as bad as it could have been. I am, however, enjoying the quattro all wheel drive, electronic slip protection, and ABS breaks for the first time. If you thought I had flagrant disregard for icy roads before, you should see me now.
I don't want to jinx anything, but I may be finally selling my old Pontiac. I slapped a For-Sale sign on it Sunday morning, and by that evening I already had a call. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
This holiday has me staying put on the island. There are plenty of people here that have invited me to dinner and drinks and everything that I'm well taken care of, not that you'd be worrying anyway. I'm actually going to be working a lot of the time, then my sister is coming to visit over New Years. I am arguing against standing in Times Square for hours on New Years Eve. I think a trendy bar in SoHo or the village and then watching fireworks from the Brooklyn Bridge sounds much more fun. A lot depends on how cold/cool it is, because if it's not frigid outside there will be some craziness in Greenwich village for sure.
Any-hoo... Hope everyone who's travelling this week arrives safe and sound, and I hope your heat works better than mine does.
December 01, 2004
VH1 Classic
I need a hero.
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light.
Bonnie Tyler is the master of a Hippie Choir. Bonnie Tyler is a cowgirl in a farmhouse. Bonnie Tyler is precariously perched on top of the Grand Canyon. Bonnie Tyler is about to get tied up by a Neon-enhanced Cowboy with a neon whip. A white gloved hand fires a silver pistol! Bonnie Tyler kneels in front of a cowby. Fade to Black.
“I'm holding on for a hero until the end of the night!”
November 28, 2004
Gobble Gobble
Thanksgiving this year was a tad scattered. I was invited to two dinners and of course I had to try and attend both. First I had cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at my landlords house. Tomato Bisque and Antipasto followed, and then we took a break before main course. I excused myself at this point to head to my boss's house where the lab was getting together for an international Thanksgiving. I'd love to tell you what everyone brought, but there really was too much food to remember. Suffice it to say that I was beyond stuffed. We spent the evening playing Outburst and Trivial Pursuit (not the easiest game with non-native English speakers).
Friday I met up with an old college friend and her husband in Manhattan. It was nice and sunny, so we strolled around SoHo and had lunch at a pub not too far from the Apple Store. Then we walked a big loop around lower Manhattan, passing by Ground Zero, Battery Park, Wall Street, South Street Seaport, and City Hall. Sidebar: Caramel Macchiados are really addicting, and I'm generally opposed to Starbucks. After a stroll through Chinatown and Little Italy we parted ways. It's really wonderful to be able to pick back up with someone after 5 years like nothing has changed.
Saturday I installed my new Airport Express (that I got on sale) which went very smoothly. At first I was disappointed with the sound quality, but it was a simple fix to turn the volume down in iTunes. Now I'm rockin' out wirelessly and loving it. Overall it was a very satisfying Apple experience - an “applegasm” if you will.
And now, it's Sunday morning. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press, and I really must say that Jerry Falwell is the single scariest person I've ever seen on TV. I'll spare you the diatribe on everything he said that made me want to wring his neck, but the amount of hate speech that flows from this man's supposedly born-again mouth is immense.
Currently Listening to: I'm Not Okay (I Promise) from the album “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge” by My Chemical Romance.
November 19, 2004
Hot Wheels
Ok, shamelessly stolen from multiple other blogs on the net. The Dancing Transformer Car. I wish my car could slap its own mechanical ass. Word on the street is that Marty Kudelka (J. Timberlake's coreographer) did 30 takes of the dance sequence with motion sensors on his body for the shot. The song, by the way, is by Les Rythmes Digitales and titled “Jacques Your Body (make me sweat)”. A 3D model of the car was created using a sophisticated laser scan, and was animated in Vancouver, B.C. by the Embassy (a video effects house).
November 18, 2004
Hospital Attack!
“A patient is brutally slashed inside a Staten Island Hospital, and it's happened before!”
“Children stalked in the suburbs”
“A cat and mouse game between police and bikers. Are police throwing in the towel when it comes to illegal parking?”
TONIGHT AT 11PM!
My news is so over the top. It doesn't even matter which local station I choose, WCBS, WNBC, WABC, and even FOX. *gasps* Now I'm so accustomed that it hardly phases me, but when you actually think about what they're saying it's too much. At least is segues nicely into the dick jokes on The Daily Show.
November 14, 2004
Trying Something New
I was kicking back watching the American Music Awards and surfing the web, as you do. I found this little program called Ecto that lets you compose blog entries using a rich OS X Client instead of typing them into the crummy little box on the MovableType Entry page. Supposedly, this will prevent me from accidentally having my entries deleted if I'm surfing around and hit the back button accidentally or something. It automatically configured itself for me when I ran it the first time and so far I've got no complaints. It looks like it supports just about every possible blog software you could hope to try.
Ok, let's see if Outkast will with the favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Group award. Did anyone really expect them to not win? Andre3000 is no present, as is “that girl with the ass” from the Outkast videos. Oooh, and Big Boi got silenced. Still to come... Janet's titty we can only hope. Bring on the Wardrobe Malfunctions.
Oh! Did ya'll hear that O.D.B. died, he was only 35, and he had a lot of kids? For those out of the loop, he liked to change his name a lot. Maybe you remember Ol' Dirty Bastard, Big Baby Jesus, or Dirt McGurt, a.k.a Russell Jones. Maybe you just remember him as a member of the Wu Tang Clan. I think I'll remember him as the guy who said:
“I'm gonna find some more women to put babies into.”
Word
November 11, 2004
Finding the Firefox Flock
I finally got off the couch and downloaded the Firefox browser that's received so many rave reviews. Overall I dig it. Nice and clean and simple. One complaint, the buttons and pulldowns have very boxy edges (like the Volvos used to be). Is there some skin or plug-in or whatever that will make my buttons and pulldowns look sexy like in Safari under OS X?
Update
I know FireFox has the AdBlock plugin which is quite cool, but is there anything that will let ads load, but prevent the flash ads from automatically playing and looping. Often I find them distracting and simply uncheck the play box, but I have to do that manually. And also, is viewing source the only way to find the server of these flash ads to block them with AdBlock?
November 08, 2004
Election Feelings
I have really wanted to post my thoughts on the Presidential election, but truthfully my mind has been very clouded with a lot of anger and bitterness. IÕve watched some of the TV pundits, listened to talk radio, talked to several people, and read a lot of other peopleÕs thoughts about the outcome of the election and itÕs causes and ramifications. ItÕs all been said. Really. ItÕs exhausting, because people are still arguing with rhetoric and propaganda. IÕm sure IÕm guilty of it, too, probably right here in this entry, but I'll do my best to avoid it. IÕve written and deleted 3 posts completely, but now IÕm just going to get this out there and follow up with points as I feel like it.
I woke up on November 3, 2004 and checked the web for the election results. My prediction was correct, that even though I voted for Kerry, W was going to win. NPR confirmed it while I was driving to work, and I was honestly feeling a little down because of it. Perhaps I was taking things too personally; after all, I didnÕt lose the election. In fact I did my part by voting in a swing state. Walking into the lab was a really odd experience. Most days I get a smile or a quick hello from people I know, but today everyone just had a sullen look on his or her face. I was shocked that everyone was so sad, just like me.
Even after waiting a few days feel disappointed, disgusted, sad, and ashamed. Disappointed that fear beat hope. Disgusted that I can expect 4 more years of the same destructive policy decisions. Sad that innocent kids will continue to die while rich men get richer. Ashamed of the people I love who voted for a candidate that has a consistent record of limiting liberty, preventing honesty, and threatening civil rights.
To the rest of the world: 49% of us are really sorry.
October 26, 2004
How Much For That Reality Star in the Window?
Aren't you glad he didn't let the monks in India shave his head?
October 21, 2004
Football, Football, Football
Last Saturday I spent the entire day watching football. Although I couldn't get the Iowa game on TV, Yahoo Sports kept updating the box score every play, and I got calls from the kids at the game and watching from home. If you weren't at the game or in the Iowa City area, most people got switched over to Mizzou v. Texas at some point, which totally sucked. I still can't believe we beat OSU, and I'm loving it. So much in fact, that I'm going to head to Happy Valley this weekend with Jerry and Sara. They've got tickets and I don't. Yes, apparently I'm willing to drive many hours to attend a sporting event without a ticket. If any of you Hawk fans out there want to hook a guy up, leave a comment.
In other football news, our department's flag football team ends the season with a 3-3 record. That alone is not embarassing at all. If you look further into the stat sheet, however, you'll see that while we show 3 wins, we actually defeated 0 teams. Here's to my 2 favorite words: de fault. I did have one interception though, so it was fun, but I'm glad it's done. Softball was a little more fun. Is it spring yet?
It's getting to that point in the year when things start to shape up for bowl games and whatnot [sidenote: mmmMMMmmm....Whatnot]. Yay speculation and complex formulas of failure. Anybody planning on attending a bowl game this year? What's your threshold, any non-Texas bowl, only the Rose Bowl? If it's not something spectacular I'll probably just save my money for a kickass ski trip. Whistler anyone?
October 12, 2004
Exercising My Right
Vote, Damnit! I did.
October 09, 2004
Llama
I know Jenniffer will appreciate this. It's no monkey salad, but please enjoy the Llama Song
Wheeeeeee!
September 29, 2004
Get those knees up
A weekend of Alumni Band and reminiscing about (ok ok... living in) the past. I'm expecting very little sleep, lots of drinking, but mostly seeing basically everyone I knew in college over the course of 48 hours, wanting to squeeze in an hour-long conversation with each person and feeling lucky if I get about 5 minutes. Currently I'm furiously packing. See ya'll soon!
September 27, 2004
Bite My Ass
Chomp!
September 23, 2004
Another 11 days
I realize that by now very few people probably read this site. For anyone who still does, I put up some photos in my gallery. I will probably be the last ones for a while since apparently I'm just about at my limit for storage space at my free site. So we'll see what I have to do from here.
Anyway, the photos are from the 2004 US Open Tennis tournament, which was a total blast. I've been every year that I've lived here in NY (going on my 3rd year). Also, there are photos of the DCA Prelims in the previously mentioned gallery.
In boring work news, we had a mock site visit by a collaborator of ours from the University of Michigan and it went very very well. The boss is proud of all of us, and my project in particular is coming along well and although the results at this point are still a tad bizzare, we'll flesh out what's really going on. I also got confirmation that my poster has been accepted for presentation at the 2004 Cell Biology Meeting in December. The next week holds some long nights at work, trying to get experiments done, and then Northwest Airlines will be kind enough to fly me to Moline for a low low price (rather than getting raped by American or United by flying into CID... $500 my ass).
::Whatever happened to my::
::Whatever happened to my::
::Whatever happened to my lunchbox?::
--John Mayer
September 11, 2004
Yowza
It's been a long time since I've updated this site (obviously). Summer has ended quite forcefully. I've actually been quite busy doing things both in my life and at work so that's the reason I've not been posting regularly. It's just a reason, not an excuse. In brief, I have been to the US Open, I went to see a Jenniffer perform in a DCA show, I've ripped down wallpaper, and I've got deadlines at work for grant updates and a semi-mock site visit. At some point I'll put of photos of the tennis and the drum corps show.
I'm planning on being at Homecoming this year from Thursday until Sunday, just FYI. And although I did not get to see the Hawks beat Iowa State I was there in spirit.
Seacrest Out!
August 31, 2004
Poker
Last Friday I had an interesting evening. I'd been invited to play poker with some friends from work, who I don't usually hang out with outside of softball. I had to get directions to the guy's house who was hosting. I actually glossed over the directions, so I was a tad surprised to see that there are a lot of nice houses in his neighborhood. He lives on a street without a sign, so it's really not an easy place. I get to the cul-de-sac and find #4 and there are 2 bulidings on the lot. One is a small house, the other some sort of meeting hall. There's a sign out front that says "Quaker Meetings 9 AM and 11 AM". So I figure, he must live in the other house. No so! He's the caretaker for the Quaker Meeting house, only pays $50/month in rent, and sleeps upstairs.
I played poker in the Quaker Meeting house, and lost $1.75. It was a surreal evening.
August 20, 2004
...but I'm allergic to Jesus!
I just read an article on Yahoo! about how the Catholic Church has stepped in and invalidated a girl's first communion because she has celiac sprue disease. This means she cannot properly digest foods containing the protein gluten. Apparently the communion wafer must contain enough wheat to be called bread by the Catholic Church.
My initial reaction is to call bullshit on the Catholic Church, since it's symbolic anyway. After a few seconds of thought, however, I am left to ponder whether or not it would be "ok" (or within their doctrine or whatever is the correct term) to use genetically modified gluten-free wheat to make the communion wafer. If so, would that be an endorsement of GM foods by the Catholic Church?
August 18, 2004
...and we're BACK!
Finally, internet at home again. I got home and the cable modem was on my doorstep. It only took a phone call to get the thing hooked up, due to ultra-crappy install software. Hello, um, do it via a webpage. Idiots.
Anyhoo, I feel much better now. Ready to play Diablo II whenever. Games on the side are welcome. I'm still looking for a good deal on a sofa for my place, and I haven't decided about my furniture layout. I'm thinking I might post a design challenge for those of you who watch a lot of HGTV and TLC. Mom is sending curtains for a Hawkeye bathroom, but other than that, it's up in the air.
August 11, 2004
Teacher, Mother, Secret Lover
Woo hoo! I have cable TV once again. Back to rotting my brain like normal.
August 09, 2004
Trivia question
Am I the only person that finds this question hilarious?
Unplugged
Saturday morning rolls around. I wake up around 9:45, have a shower, get a bite to eat, sit down on the floor in front of the tv (since I have no sofa) and turn on VH1 for some "I Love the 90s" when what do I get on the tv? Nothing, nada, static, blue screen. Bugger-all, the cable got disconnected. I have to call them today and get it turned back on. However...
Currently I am without cable tv or any sort of internet connection!
The horror, the unbelievable horror! Finally I resorted to watching a 2 year old episode of Friends that I had on tape. It was the one with Joey's movie premiere and at the end Rachel goes into labor. Follow that with the last 20 minutes of the ER episode when Dr. Green is in Hawaii and dies at the end. Follow that with Kirsten Dunst hosting SNL. I turned it off after a promo for Cleopatra 2021 came on. I know I didn't tape that.
I need some TV by Tuesday so I can watch The Amazing Race.
August 04, 2004
Moved
I'm exhausted. It took about 4 hours to move everything into my new place. After that I had to run to work for a couple of hours followed by playing a softball double-header. We lost both games but played the two toughest teams in the league and really held our own against them. No more blowouts, Waaaahoooooo!
Then I returned to my new place, with huge piles of my stuff everywhere. Thankfully, I had a pleasant little Spanish helper to move things quickly along. We just did the minimum for the evening: set up the bed, dresser, and bathroom. I still have a lot lot lot of cleaning to do since there's still a lot of construction dust around. I should probably just get used to that since a lot of small things need to be repainted, repaired, or tweaked. I did manage to plug in my TV in time to catch The Amazing Race after a 5 minute delay due to the Yankee's game. Stupid Yankees. But next week I get to see it early (7 PM) because of the late Yankee's game. I must say that I am a bit baffled by the change in fast-forward policy and petty theft that has been added this year, but we'll see how it all plays out. I want to see the mom's panhandle.
More cleaning and setup tonight, and I'm sore from all the heavy lifting. I should get back to the gym.
August 03, 2004
Moving Day
The time has finally arrived, and I have to leave my fancy digs. *wipes away a tear* I'm a little bit behind by Iowa City standards, but here I am, moving again. This is getting old. I need to find something a bit more permanant.
July 29, 2004
Balloon Malfunction
I'm watching the tail end of the DNC on CNN, and at the end of John Kerry's speech apparently they were supposed to drop a LOT of balloons. They left the stage manager's mic live and I'm sure I heard him say, "What the fuck are you guys doing up there, we need more balloons!" Which was just funny. At least it wasn't a wardrobe malfunction.
The Weirdness of Memory
Sara asked me on the first day we were at the beach, "Do things seem smaller than you remember them from when you were a kid?" and I didn't have a proper answer for her. I think my response was something like, "yeah, kinda..." but I really didn't put too much thought into it. The pier definitely did feel shorter, and the little concrete block wall that I used to balance on definitely seemed miniature. The beach was the same, the water was the same, and the house was the same, just a bit worse for wear.
Back when I only visited the beach with my family, we kind of fell into the same activity pattern year after year. We'd fish, we dig for clams, sometimes we'd go flounder gigging, we'd go to the same crappy restaurants to eat shrimp. It was all kind of familiar and comforting. This time, however, I was completely free to explore all the options the tiny beach towns had to offer. With my grandparents and parents, I never went to any of the beach restaurants, as they were deemed to be not as good as home cooking. We never EVER went to any of the bars or nightclubs even when I was of legal age. I kind of understand that now, since a lot of those places are full of scary rednecks. We were able to find one decent place that we ended up going to every night we were there (we had to go somewhere, the air conditioning was out) called the Sea Witch.
One night we ventured out to a place called the Fat Pelican. This place was about as redneck a bar as you can find anywhere. The one awesome feature of this bar was that they did not keep beer behind the counter, only wine and liquor. They had a giant walk-in cooler (just like Dirty John's) full of beer, and you were expected to make your selections from their inventory and pay at the bar. Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea.
I don't really have a frame of reference for the size of the restaurants or bars, so I'll have to be excused from comment on that. The ocean is quite another story. I basically lived in salt water during the summers I spent at the beach, and the minute I stepped back into the water I felt completely at home. Gently being tossed about by the waves, body surfing in, finding sand fleas in the surf, all these things were the most natural things in the world and were exactly as I remember them.
My great-aunt and great-uncle also came to visit with us one morning. I always love seeing them and talking for hours. They're still with it at 77 years old. I hope I can get there one day. After hearing the stories they had to recount, Jerry said to me, "Jeff, I had no idea you were so seafaring." I had to step out of myself for a minute and I'd have to agree with him. Only my family has really been witness to my activities at the beach, and I really haven't shared that part of my life with my midwestern friends - shockingly enough it just never came up. I guess I am kind of a seafaring guy, or at least a beachy guy.
I even took a short drive down to the boat dock in the bay to see if it would stir up any fond memories. Most of the memories were of the unpleasant smell and swarms of tiny flying insects. The fiddler crabs still made me want to chase them back into their holes, though. We used to embark from this dock when we would go clam digging. It was so eerily familiar I couldn't help but enjoy being there, even though I found it terribly annoying to be stuck in the bay for the entire day.
Standing there, reliving a lot of summertime childhood memories, I thought about where I would be in two days. Back in the city, where the most petty things seem to be critical worries, where the traffic never ends, where you can't see the stars or hear the crashing of the waves. It was nice to be there, but it's not a perfect place. Is there any such thing?
Maybe it doesn't matter where you are, but who you're with. Most of my most vivid memories of my grandparents are from our time at that beach house. Similarly, the things I'll remember most about this trip aren't when I caught that really great wave, or when we ate in that nice restaurant, but of just lying on the beach and chatting with a few of the wonderful people in my life.
July 18, 2004
Au Naturale Tour
I thought it was about time to see a concert in the NY area after all the complaining that I did in the midwest about how my favorite acts rarely came to my town. I guess the draw of Steamboat Days wasn't enough for the big names. On friday night I got to see Alanis Morissette and the Barenaked Ladies play at the Tommy Hilfiger at Jones Beach Theatre.
First of all, the ampitheatre is at the beach, the stage is over the water, and you can see water on both sides of the stage. I was expecting the sound to be less than perfect but was pleasantly surprised. Apparently they figured out how to keep it from bouncing around in odd ways due to the water.
Opening the night was a woman named Nellie McKay who was a bit bizzare. She sang three songs and got off stage, and I wasn't sad to see her go. Maybe I just didn't get it. Next, Alanis came on to mild applause (it was still daylight, so I wasn't stunned) with an unfilled ampitheatre. I like her music, but she really doesn't have much of a stage presence. Her voice was amazing, and I was really impressed that she sounded so good. No real surprises from her, and she was done in 90 minutes.
Finally, the Ladies came on. Wow! What a show they put on! I have heard people say that you really don't appreciate them as a band until you see them live, and it's true, it was an impressive, fun, rockin' show. I'll spare you a full review, I just don't have the nack to remember every song and blink and eyelash flutter (unlike some people). My favorite part of the show was the acoustic portion. All the guys came and stood around one old-fashioned microphone and sang 3 songs acoustically, and plalyed it off in a very "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" manner. The songs were "Life, In a Nutshell", "One Week", and "For You". It was worth the price of admission just to hear those songs.
They ended the main part of their show with a new song called "Shopping", which was choreographed with shopping carts at the beginning, and towards the end turned into a synchronized swimming style act. It was so hilarious that the crowd didn't know how to respond. They spilled a bunch of packing peanuts everywhere during that part, and the roadies appeared to clean it up, and people stood there waiting. Eventually the guys reappeared and made some crack about how we already had the encore bit figured out. Of course, the encore was "If I had $1,000,000" which was great. They left again, and people figured it was time to clap and demand an encore, which they gave us. Super-fun show. I'd love to see them again. If you like their music at all, I would highly recommend seeing them live, but not on this tour unless you like Alanis, too, since they both stick to 90 minute sets. I wanted more!
To come: Comments on peple in the crowd.
July 06, 2004
Where you at?
I totally dig hilarious commercials so here are the links to my two favorites:
Very classy.
June 30, 2004
Power Hungry Interns
As part of my D.C. experience, I attended a few summer BBQs and even an old-fashioned Kegger. At first the people seemed amicable and only interested in relaxing over a burger and a beer. Pushing aside the veil of cheerfulness revealed that these interns are not only here to party, they are here to network.
I spoke at length with a really wonderful girl who just graduated from Duke Univeristy with a Masters Degree in Environmental Policy (or something similar). She is convinced that in 10 years she'll be running the EPA and saving the world. Seriously. I can almost forgive her because she's from southern California and probably has ex-hippies for parents.
Another interesting character at one BBQ told me how he was working for the Senate Armed Forces Committee. I tried to press and get some info about what kind of policy decisions he has affected, but all I got was a diatribe about how he is in graduate school working on a degree in International Relations. [Sidenote: I did not know such a degree even existed, but I'm basically living a life of international relations in my current job, so I think I could pretty much breeze through such a program as a fallback career.]
Later on, at a separate party, I was accidentally talking to a few people who had graduated law school. Luckily, they decided not to take the bar exam so I felt much better about them. One girl works for The Truth Campaign. The other is a patent associate and works at the US Patent Office.
A plethora of less memorable characters were also present at the parties. Stereotypes were wandering about everywhere, typified by the Ÿber-tan German guy with high blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He was accompanied by Jewish, Italian, and Rich-bitch stereotypes. Don't hate them because they're beautiful, buffed, waxed, and polished.
I did meet one unique girl who is working as an elementary school teacher, which in this crowd made her stick out, but not as much as me. Being from out-of-town was no big deal, but my zero-relevance to anything involving the D.C. experience was both an instant novelty and brief distraction. It's really a exasperating to have someone say, "oh, you've got a real job that's actually doing something productive for society" and then just float softly back into a dream of limitless political power and corporate influence.
Initial reflections on meeting this odd slice of the D.C. community, which is quite different from my daily experience in academia, gave me a feeling of self-satisfaction. Most people told me how important they thought my work was and how their own contributions to society were so much weaker. Later I realized that ego-stroking is a skill you must quickly develop to succeed in Washington and these kids are true professionals.
June 20, 2004
Another second place finish
As much as Phil Mickelson wanted to win, it didn't happen today. I'm not such a huge golf fan. Truth be told, I find it boring to watch on TV and infuriating to play. Usually sports are more fun to watch live rather than on TV. Not so with golf. The ONLY way to watch golf is on TV. Granted, I only attended a practice round, but it really was not exciting. You can try to chase after your favorite players, but it's virtually impossible to stalk one player around the whole course because of the crowd management layout. They do have grandstands set up, but I can't imagine a more boring day than to watch everyone try to putt on the same green. ESPN can make anything exciting and compelling.
Perhaps the only saving grace are players with names like Fuzzy Zoeller and Fred Funk. That, and the fact that ESPN is still on LIVE at Shinnecock at 11:45 PM EDT. They're moaning and crying about the wind and the dry grass, to which I say pshaw. The course is about 500 yards from the bay, on the east end of Long Island what do you expect? There aren't even any trees on the course.
"But Jeff, if you had such an awful time, why did you even go?" First, I like to see places on TV that I actually have been. Sometimes locations on television appear much more fantastic and special than they actually are. I don't know if they have some special filter for the lenses or what. Second, most of the males in my extended family play a lot of golf, and I like to send them photos and souviners from places they find interesting. Plus I like making people jealous.
I apologize for the disjointed and rambling nature of this post. I put my scanned and digital photos up in the gallery. Enjoy!
June 16, 2004
Practice Round
It was fun, but I probably wouldn't do it again. More photos to come.
June 14, 2004
Fore!
I just got tickets to tomorrows practice round at the US Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton. Just another random chapter in my life. Part of the rules are that cell phones are not allowed through the gates, even on practice round days, so don't call me. Lucky for me that this is just a practice round and cameras are still allowed (but no love as of Thursday).
I called my dad and he was incensed that I had tickets and he didn't. I'm supposed to try and get an autograph from John Daly. I'd rather track down Phil Mickelson. Stupid pesky no-autographs policy. I'll see what I can do. At the very least this will be a good place to get a father's day gift.
Video Game Lifestyle
Weekend
In brief...
Friday - random BBQ with grad students.
Saturday - Wedding and Reception.
Sunday - Running, Tennis and BBQ.
In length...
June 12, 2004
Impromptu Holiday
Some people had Friday off. Technically I did, but it doesn't really work that way with science, so we had lab meeting and basically a normal work day today. If I were at home like a normal government worker, maybe I would have gathered friends together and been tacky like this.
June 07, 2004
Summer Concerts
It turns out that there are some really great musical acts this summer on Long Island, and finally I'm going to attend one. I got tickets to see Barenaked Ladies and Alanis Morisette on July 16. I haven't been to a concert in ages.
Shotgun Wedding
Well, the marriage actually happened. What was at first going to be a semi-secret ceremony was opened to the lab, and it was very nice. The judge was relaxed and groovy and said we could basically run around wherever we wanted to take photos and whatnot. I actually used my big film camera and had the pics scanned at the developer. Go check out the photos.
June 04, 2004
Best Lab Meeting... EVER!
Friday morning at 9 AM is when our lab meets to discuss the week and hear one lab member present his or her work. We also get bagels. This morning we were 5 minutes late, as per usual, and we went ahead and started with the announcements. Standard issue statements about cleaning up after yourself and choice tidbits about when the boss is going to be off travelling to meetings were dispensed first. Nothing really to get excited about (except telling people to stop ordering so much damn glycine). Bob's presentation went along smoothly and we were done right on time.
Oh, but JŽrome (a postdoc in the lab) has one more thing...
"Today, at 4 PM in the Village Hall I am getting married to Dorothy [his live-in French girlfriend]"
She arrived a couple of months ago after suffering for 2 months without him. They struggled with a lot of visa issues and immigration status and university red tape for the next couple of months while Dorothy was working as a technician in another lab. The process was very complicated because her degree does not exactly match anything that the US accepts from an accredited university. She has more than a masters, but not quite a Ph.D. The final solution from all offices involved was that she could stay and work if she registered as a grad student, paid tuition, took classes, but just worked like a normal person. All of these hassles and her visa status would still not be guaranteed based on space in the program in which she was registered (J-1's suck like that).
One univiersity offical remarked after hearing of the struggle, "Geez, this wouldn't even be an issue if you were married."
For two weeks they secretly plotted a devious loophole-inspired marriage. In fact, the parents were only informed of their plans yesterday. It turns out that in NY it's even easier to get married than in Vegas! No blood test or anything, you just have to have a passport and wait 24 hours before you actually get hitched.
The Port Jefferson Village Hall usually does marriages between 5-7 PM, but they are doing this one early so the couple can go on honeymoon to the David Bowie concert at the Tommy Hilfiger at Jones Beach Theatre tonight at 7:30.
Lucky for them that they're not gay. *eyeroll*
More Photos
I have posted some photos from my brief encounter in Iowa. I really need to send a big huge thank you to the Utechs for letting me crash in their guest room after a lovely evening. Also, a huge huge thank you to the Roethlers for allowing my family to basically take over your living room and deck for the evening. You don't know how happy I was to hang out with all of you. Oh, and here's a picture of my new car. More on it later.
June 01, 2004
The Journey of 7848 steps...
When people get together, get drunk, and play poker for no money, judgement can sometimes find itself clouded. At such times, a small group of people might collectively decide that a walk from North Liberty to Coralville in the middle of the night is not quite possibly the most ridiculous idea of the week. Instead, such a group might in fact offer moral support and pedometers to the bold traveller. Such a group might be so optimistic of such a journey to take a before photo.
The rest of us went to bed quite contentedly. The following morning, this email* was waiting:
May 26, 2004
Late Notice
News! This has all fallen into place fairly quickly so I apologize for the late notice but here goes. I'm flying back to the midwest to pick up my new (to me) Audi A4. I will be in the IC area on or about Friday and Saturday and possibly part of Sunday. After that I'll be heading back east.
If you're going to be in the area and would like to get together, please contact my social secretary in the midwest office for dinner and drink arrangements. I will be in the mood for grilling if anyone wants to fire up and invite me over to a new house. Pork Chops sound tasty.
I'll do my best to visit everyone as much as possible. It is also the week of my mom and sister's birthday so I want to celebrate that while it's convenient.
Also, here's a great big apology for blowing off The Steeles for having to cancel our plans this weekend. I promise I'll get to Philly as soon as I can.
May 25, 2004
Stretching
*insert Ariel's Theme here*
From Yahoo News Photos:
Uruguayans players Diego Forlan (R) and Adrian Romero stretch during a team practice in Montevideo, May 25, 2004. Uruguay will face Peru on June 1 in a soccer qualifying match for the 2006 World Cup. REUTERS/Andres Stapff
May 19, 2004
The Horror! (and the Beauty)
I have owned an iPod since the day that the original 10 GB version was released on March 21, 2002. It came as an early birthday present for me that year and I have loved and cared for it since. Overall we have had a smooth relationship, except for a few small issues with the battery guage (a known problem which was replaced under warranty) and later because of an even weirder software glitch that no one could explain. Both times the nice folks at the Apple Store (once in SoHo, once in the Walt Whitman Mall) replaced my iPod with a refurb and I was on my way again. So, technically I'm on my third iPod.
Now my play/pause button is not working, even after a software restore. I'm afraid this might be the end of this iPod. Perhaps I'll be lucky and Apple will replace it again for free.
As a consolation prize, I noticed today when I started iTunes that someone, somewhere on my network is using iTunes and sharing some music, which I can stream from his computer. I don't know where it's coming from, but thank you Ari!
May 12, 2004
Back up off my jacuzzi
"We like you a lot, you're the perfect tennant -- it's just weird not using our basement"
I have to move out.
Inevitability
Today someone "ran a few things by me", which in this instance was something that I knew was inevitable, and kind of makes me sad, but I made my peace with it a while ago. Life goes on, and it's not all bad, but there are things I will miss.
*Sigh*
May 10, 2004
How's your name?
Common. Apparently. Like I needed to be told that.
Jeff is the #120 most common male name.
0.166% of men in the US are named Jeff.
Around 203350 US men are named Jeff!
source namestatistics.com
Smith is the #1 most common last name.
1.006% of last names in the US are Smith.
Around 2515000 US last names are Smith!
source namestatistics.com
May 03, 2004
The Steele's Visit
Kickin' it on the North Shore with Jerry and Sara. I love having visitors.
April 28, 2004
Annoying?
I like this quiz better than most. What annoying internet entity are you?
April 27, 2004
Mi Casa
Es Su Casa. Awesome! Kickass! And other excited interjections! I can give you better directions if you want to come straight to my house, or we can meet up at a ghetto diner or something, Soprano's style. Or we can meet up at John Harvards and have lobster bisque (yadda, yadda, yadda).
Ya'll just made my weekend.
April 26, 2004
Shameless Self-Promotion
It's my birthday. I'm old, and will not be shaking anything tonight because I have to get up early tomorrow. How sad is it that I wish I could go to Jake's tonight?
Perhaps tomorrow will bring some sushi into my life. And some sunshine... stupid rain.
April 25, 2004
Look Alikes
I saw Meet the Press tonight (I don't get up early enough on Sunday to watch it in the morning like most people, thank you CNBC) and got a good look at Bob Woodward for the first time. I kept getting distracted because he was talking about US Government officials, and all I could hear in my head was talk of food dehydrators and spray-on hair. This man looks like Ron Popeil! See for yourself. (Sorry, images stolen from the internet, if you want them removed, leave it in comments.)
Welcome, D!
Diane has joined us all in the blogging world. Check it out.
April 22, 2004
Meow
Check this out. I laughed my ass off. *cackles hysterically*
April 19, 2004
It Snapped
I finally got to play tennis today! It was along winter and a rainy spring (so far), but today was the nicest day anyone could ask for. I played tennis so hard, that I broke a string on my racket. I've never had to re-string a racket, so I had no idea what to look for, but I went down to The Sports Authority to get some new strings. The staff were semi-helpful but not very knowledgeable, so I had to guess and hope it works out. Gotta do some internet research tonight for next time.
It was nice to get out and smack some balls around, though.
Oh, and I went by Borders and wandered around. I picked up an 11"x14" Illustrated World Reference Atlas on sale for only $15.
April 13, 2004
Easter Weekend
This Easter weekend was the best weekend I've had in a while. On Thursday Wendy pointed out that Eddie Izzard was actually doing a stand-up gig at the Village Theatre during the week. I phoned up the theatre and found out that tickets were only $10 available at the door only after 9:15 PM, no guaranteed entry unless you attend the first show (which was Dylan Moran for $35). I did not leave work in time to see the first show, but I did make it there by 9:15 and scored a ticket. At the show, I ran into a guy I know from the university here so I hung out with him and his friends in the front row on the side.
Great show! It was excellent. He was in "boy mode" so there was no cross dressing, but he was still hilarious. Eddie ran into the room from the main doorway, and leapt up onto stage and started his act about a half-hour before it was scheduled to start. "The news never does that do they? It just doesn't some on at 10:45 and say, 'We've got a lot to cover tonight so we better just get started'". He did a bit about Odysseus and the Sirens, which I saw on his Sexie tour, and there was a truly hilarious bit about how the sport of curling was invented in Scotland and why they use brooms. Classic!
After the show we went to Caffe Reggio in Greenwich Village. I had tiramisu and an Original Italian Espresso. I rode with my friends back home, and after we crossed the Williamsburg bridge we got stuck in traffic for an hour. At 1 AM! Not exactly a pleasant way to end the evening, and I'd have been home sooner if I rode the LIRR, but oh well, at least I was comfy and warm.
Saturday night JŽrome hosted a potluck with a bunch of other Europeans. I was the only American in attendance. That's not an experience I can say that I've had before inside the US. All of the food was great, but the hilight of the evening for me was Giuseppe's lasagne. If he ever returns to Italy I'm going to have to have him mail it to me once a year - it's that good. I supplied the Silk and Satin cake from La Bonne Boulangerie. It's cheescake topped with chocolate mousse and covered in more chocolate.
As the evening progressed we played a parlor game which JŽrome called "Murder". Everyone had a task to trick another person into performing. For example, if I asked you to open a bottle of wine, and you did it, then my task is complete. When my task is complete, you are "dead" and I take your task and have to finish it. It's slightly complex, and requires a lot of planning on the part of the host, but it makes for some interesting conversations. I was almost the first one murdered, but it was a false one because the assassin misread the task. So then I was supposedly invincible. Except Frency had an escape clause that he didn't tell anyone about so I ended up losing. Oh well. Then we played twister. (Photo removed by request.)
Sunday was a nice Easter Brunch with my landlords. Their extended family was in town, and we at way too much Italian and Polish food. I was a very happy guy. Then we watched Phil Mickelson win the Masters and the day was good. Now I need to go jog, except it's pouring down rain with no signs of stopping.
Gotta love Spring.
April 08, 2004
The Cow Says...
Muah, apparently.
Also, today at lunch with the EU I learned that sheep in northern France cannot speak with the sheep in southern France. We also talked about what many of the other animals say. I guess it was one of those conversations where you had to be there. I did, however, confirm one thing that has been bugging my Eddie Izzard trivia obsessed mind:
Dogs in southern France really do say "Wua Wua".
April 05, 2004
Another Hip-Hop Star Rises
I know a lot of you out there have been seriously losing sleep over the following question:
¥Who's the guy with the umbrella in the Outkast videos?
He is known as Farnsworth Bentley, a.k.a. Cascade Cabernet, a.k.a. Cashmere, a.k.a Derrick Watkins, and a lot of peole will recognize him as the umbrella guy from the Outkast videos. Initially, he became famous because of a photograph of him holding an umbrella for P. Diddy on a beach in St. Tropez. This photo was published in a few papers and shown on The Tonight Show and a few other TV programs. He was P.Diddy's major-domo for a while, but now has moved on to other things.
What's his deal? Well, he graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in Biology, and he studied classical violin. It turns out that he and Andre 3000, a.k.a AndrŽ Benjamin were high school friends from Atlanta. Bentley was a preppy guy and still prefers pressed proper attire instead of the ghetto fabulous look. He's really trying to capitalize on the umbrella trademark by starting his own line of umbrellas on his website. Also, he's in talks to represent the Courvoisier brand.
Don't make the mistake of calling him a rapper either:
"First of all, I would like to get this out there: I am not an MC," he hissed. "I'm not a rapper, I am a renaissance man. You have to create a whole new category for me. What I do is dissertation over instrumental."
Perhaps he can be described as a beacon of class in the ghetto-fab world of hip-hop. More power to him, and I hope you all sleep better at night.
Taxes
Stupid Taxes. Most people I know are getting a refund. In fact, one guy at work (who purchased a house last year) is getting over $5000 back!!! I guess I ineed to start spawning some little Earned Income Credits so I can save on taxes. Or not. Anyway, I've got to pay a couple of bills in federal taxes, but I get a whopping $2.00 State refund. Apparently I'm pretty good at filling out a W-4 form. I used a tax program *cough* "borrowed from a friend" *cough* to calculate things. At the end of it all, I checked out the e-file options. Apparently, someone (the government, the tax software people, I don't know) gets $14.95 for a federal return and $10.95 for a state return. WTF?!
The software itself, and the IRS Website both confirm that if you want to enjoy the benefits of e-filing, then it'll cost you. The software even includes a video explaining how e-file is faster and easier and introduces less human error since no government employee has to manually input my information. This sounds like it should SAVE the government money.
It's my opinion that the IRS should use some of their annual operating budget to hire some people to create a website where everyone can go to fill out their tax forms FOR FREE!!!! If e-filing saves time and money, shouldn't this be performed by our government? It baffles me that this is left to private companies to profit by selling the software, and then perhaps get a cut when you actually e-file. What the hell kind of tax software lobby is out there calling for this.
So screw that, I'm pringting out my forms, and some government employee will have to input my data, and I'll wait wait wait for my stinkin' $2.00 check. I sure as hell am NOT paying to e-file so I can pay more money in tax. To me, it's rediculous to even offer that option. The only case where I'd do this is if I was getting a big refund and wanted my money ASAP. But I fail to see why I should have to pay more for the privledge of receiving money which should be mine anyway, and was basically a free loan to the government for the previous year.
Enough ranting for now, I've got to go write a check and seal an envelope.
April 02, 2004
Religion is Insane
There's a wire story that I read on Salon that really disturbed me today. Basically, a Texas woman stoned her kids to death because she thought she was getting signs from God. She's entered a plea of innocent because of insanity. I do not disagree that this woman is a total headcase whack-job, but she needs to be locked up for a very long time for doing this. I can understand mental illness as a defense in certain cases, but this story is really amazingly disturbing for me. Her defense attorney has a lot of guts trying this. I wonder if the jury will give her the death penalty.
Isn't it amazing the things people will do in the name of their religion or beliefs? It's not just Islam either. And if they just decide she was insane and put her in a treatment facility, does that mean that anyone that commits a crime in the name of their religion can also easily claim insanity because they were hallucinating instructions from God? I mean, if you hallucinate sparkly flying elves that tell you to kill someone, and you don't have pre-conceived notions about sparkly flying elves then I'd definitely say you are insane and probably should be treated instead of jailed. But if you already have a firm belief in God, and then suddenly you think you've received a message from God to do something you're not really hallucinating are you? You already believe that God is real, and is affecting people's lives, and you should do what you're told and follow the signs. The insanity argument doesn't really hold, does it?
Or maybe she really is just clinically insane. Go read the story.
March 29, 2004
Quote for the Day
From today at the mall with Wendy:
"This shirt looks like a sleazy mobster would wear it.""Um, we ARE on Lowngh Eyelund."
"Oh, right."
More on New Cars
Today I test drove a Mini Cooper S. DUDE! (Ok, I'll stop channeling Morgan) It was so sweet. It's super-zippy, handles like a go-cart, and is plenty roomy for a tall person like me. I love it, and I want one - I think.
I also test drove a Volvo S60 which had the most comfortable seat in which I've ever rested my bum. All I can say is that it was decent. The test drove was lame, we drove basically around the block and the sales guy was a moron.
Plus, I started doing math and seeing how much all this is going to cost me and apparently I've been deceiving myself. Perhaps I'll lease, but that's not a great plan financially. Perhaps I'll get a Honda Civic, but that's not a great idea emotionally. I wish that the car I drive didn't matter to me, but for some reason it does. I want a nice sporty luxury car. I need a way to get to work and to the store and various trips around the area, but I haven't taken a long car trip in a long time.
Mini Cooper S. Audi A4. Volvo S60. Honda Accord. Toyota Corolla.
Someone please tell me why this matters*!*!*!*!*!
March 26, 2004
Roth IRAs
A while ago on some other blogs the topic of investments and ROTH IRAs came up. Clearly I'm too lazy to go back and search for the relevant discussion, but there was some general agreement that it's good to invest in a ROTH to the full amount. There was a small amount of debate over dollar cost averaging into the account, or just dumping in $3000 at the beginning of the year (assuming you have the luxury of donig that). Today I spotted this article on CNN Money today which offers some further insight. Basically, we were all right, just for different reasons. Apparently, we're some smart people.
"I am so smart. S-M-R-T, I mean S-M-A-R-T!" --Homer Simpson
March 14, 2004
Skiing!
Holy shit! It's 1:45 and I'm still up. I have to be up at 4:30 to get to the airport. Two hours of sleep is plenty. I can't wait.
Too bad I'll be missing the 243rd St. Patrick's Day Parade on Wednesday at 11 AM EST. It was a lot of fun last year. Last year, BC and I saw ran into this guy, and he wasn't even in the parade.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
March 13, 2004
Vacillations of an Automotive Nature
To follow up my previous post, I'd like to talk about new cars. Not necessarily brand new cars, but newer than 2000 model year. I'm of two minds on the subject. When it all boils down, a car is merely a tool to get me from point A to point B. In my case, this is over a poorly maintained road that is ironically called "Highway 25A", while it is neither high, nor a good way, or arguably 25 of anything. I need a reliable car to get me from work to home every day, about 15 minutes each way. Also, trips to the store and roadtrips in the area would need to be reasonably comfortable.
What's the smart choice? A Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla (also, the Ford Focus is decent). Both are small cars with good gas mileage, are very reliable and have low maintenance. But they aren't really that exciting or fun to drive. They do make a lot of economic sense.
So, what do I want? What do I really really want? Well Spice Girls, I want a Mini Cooper S with all the bells and whistles. At least I think they are really awesome and would be fun to drive, although I have yet to ever get inside one, much less take a test drive. That may soon change.
I've also spent a fair amount of time lusting after the Audi A4 3.0L. For whatever reason, I just feel like it's "me". I did test drive one of these, and loved it. Ask Wendy. It's a tad pricy for me at this poing in my life, so I'd be looking at a previously owned or leased model.
Other interests, in decreasing order of preference: The Volkswagen Passat, Acura TSX, BMW 3 series, Nissan Altima.
Should I go for the economical but boring choice, or spend the extra money on a fun car? Also, I'm open to suggestions if I'm overlooking some other wonderful automobile.
March 12, 2004
Trannies and Parking Brakes
This week, while dealing with preparing to presnet lab meeting, I had to deal with automotive issues. I had the oil changed and supposedly the fluids were topped up and all that jazz. Well, it starts grumbling and idling slow and then on Monday the transmission sounds like I'm driving without a clutch. My V6 automatic is running at 4000+ RPMs and is going 20 MPH. So my dad, the car guru, suggests that I check the transmission fluid level. Bingo! Empty. I head out to get more, and try to fill it up in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I actually had a hard time finding where to fill it, so I actually looked it up in the owners manual. Who knew you had to pour it down the tiny dipstick tube?! In following the "directions" I engage the parking break, which doesn't engage quite right, but I don't think much of it. I pour in some transmission fluid and hope all will be well, jump back in the car and hope for the best.
Then I try to release the parking brake, and nothing happens. So I do what any self-respecting 14 year old girl does with car problems. I call my daddy - again. His advice, "Hit it with a wrench and spray it with WD-40". Seriously, I already thought of that. I lay there, in the cold, salty parking lot of Wal-Mart beating on my parking brake mechanism with a pair of pliers. I am now my car's bitch.
This is the point where I decide it's time to get a new car. My car is a 1989 Grand Prix. It's been good to me, but I just can't deal with it anymore.
I end up driving to the mechanic with the parking brake partially engaged. I'm sure it liked that. Someone from work graciously came and picked me up. Apparently the whole mechanism is horked, but they managed to release the brake and I'll need a new parking brake cable which will they charge me $160 to install. Or I can just opt to never use my parking brake (lest I fancy leaving my car parked permanantly).
March 08, 2004
Even More Quizzes
I've got to prepare a presentation for lab meeting on Friday morning, so I'll just do these quizzes to procrastinate.
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.
Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.
Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
I don't even know what that last one is. And now back to searching through archived images.
Inner European
Another Quiz. Thanks Sara and Katie.
You are a Russian.
I'm not surprised by the results.
March 06, 2004
Stolen Lines
This is the best line I could lift from an undisclosed website for the day:
"Stop skipping and start swaggering when you walk. Life is not a musical darlin', it's a porno and don't you forget it."
March 02, 2004
Country Quiz
Ok. Another one that I've seen in a number of places, it's quick, easy, and fun. Which country best represents you?
You're Mozambique!
You're tired of fighting with yourself. For years, you fought battles
with yourself over every little thing you could, but now it's finally time to move on. Just forgetting about it looks like the best way to move on, though you really like graphic representations of machine guns for some reason. Rebuilding yourself is going to be a challenge, but with the inner peace you feel now, it's looking like a possibility. Just take the machine gun off
your flag.
Take the Country Quiz
LotR quiz
This is really quite stupid, but the quiz actually made me laugh, so here's my Ringwraith Quiz.
Which Ringwraith are You?
By Lisa
March 01, 2004
Dining in New York
I had a wonderful, wonderful pre-weekend. Josh and his brother Jared were in the area for a Bar Mitzvah, and decided to come a couple of days early to sample some of New York's fantastic restaurants. It started out with gigantic portions, included a lot of foreign tastes, and ended like so many things in New York - at the Bus Station.
We stayed at the Amsterdam Court Hotel on 50th Street, which was a decent hotel, not very expensive, but the rooms were small. The showers were impossible to adjust. To steal a measurement term from Eddie Izzard, "you have to adjust the shower knobs to only one nano-millimeter to get the correct water temp" or it's freezing-cold or scalding-hot. But we all lived.
We headed uptown and stopped at Zabar's Grocery where Jared lusted after many copper kettles. The first meal we had was at Carmine's Restaurant. They have very greasy, filling food in large portions, served family style. We ordered the ravioli and double split lamb chop with a nice chianti. Good food, hearty, and very very satisfying. Afterwards we ended wandering around Time Square, where we bought a cannoli for $4. This was not the most ridiculously priced item that would be purchased during the weekend. Then we chilled at the hotel for a while, and ended up just having a few drinks in the bar and talking. I really miss sitting around and having long discussions about lives and politics and, well, the universe basically. It's very satisfying. Unfortunately the conversation just doesn't flow quite as well with people who have English as a second language, and I end up speaking to those people more ofthen than old friends.
The next morning Jared decided it would be a good idea to wake up at 4:30 AM to go downtown to the Fulton Street Fish Market, where all the wholesalers buy the fresh fish for the day. Apparently it was cool, and he's promised to send me some photos - but I was sleeping like any normal person.
Josh and I had more pressing matters anyway - a 10:00 appointment with an Uzbekistani barber at his barbershop, Paul MolŽ. Actually, Josh's barber was Italian. Mine was Lev, the owner, an Uzbekistani immigrant with a thick accent and incredible skills with a straight razor. This was an experience that I hightly recommend to anyone with an interest. At first, when I said I wanted a shave and a haircut he said, "No, you look good with the beard, you keep the beard." I finally had to convince him that I'd made up my mind, and I wanted him to shave me. He starts with a hot towell on your face, followed by some sort of oil which he rubbed into my beard for about two minutes, followed by more hot towells, followed by actual hot shaving foam. Then the shaving begins. First with the grain, then against. I was seriously smooth after the whole process, and extremely cold when we went outside.
We met Jared at Grand Central Station, and decided to have pizza for lunch. Not very exciting. Then we went to an independent movie called The Dreamers. It was good, and a little weird. After that we went to stand in line to see a taping of the Daily Show. We got to see Samuel L. Jackson, but overall the taping wasn't as good as the last one I saw. In fact, it ran long and we had to kind of rush to get back to the hotel and change clothes before we went to dinner.
Jared made reservations at Aquavit, which is a really really great restaurant in midtown. You can see pictures of everything about the place in my photo album. I'll have a list of everything I ate, because Jared requested a copy of the menu. I think I consumed at least 10 species of animal, and about 7 types of alcohol. If you've got $200 burning a hole in your pocket, it's a great place to eat. I can't justify eating there more than once a lifetime - unless someone else is paying.
After dinner we stopped at a deli and grabbed a variety of beer to sample back at the hotel. Josh and I sat in the "Cappuchino Bar" area of the lobby and drank our beer and talked again, for 3 hours. We drank a lot of random stuff, including Arrogant Bastard Ale. More great beer and great conversation, and a lot of looking forward to skiing in two weeks.
The next day we got up and went down to SoHo to wander around before lunch at Nobu. It was another really nice restaurant, and I love Japaneese food, so it was a great lunch. Then it was time to figure out how to get the boys to New Jersey. The lady in the customer service booth at the New Jersey Transit station told us that the only way to Teaneck was on a bus, and it was scheduled to leave on the 3:15 bus out of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, one stop up the subway. I left Josh and Jared at 3:11 as they went through the turnstiles. I later found out that they made it to the hotel in Teaneck, and there was a surly bus driver involved that ended up dropping them off directly at their hotel, but only after stopping for a deli sandwhich first. Love that east coast mentality.
Also, I'm soliciting opinions on the new look which is only temporary, I promise. Please ignore the bow tie.
February 25, 2004
In New York
I'll be hanging in Manhattan for tonight and tomorrow as I have friends visiting once again. It will be a few days filled with museums, expensive restaurants, and razor blades. Do not fear the Uzbekistani barber...
February 21, 2004
Windham ski trip
Our department organizes a ski trip every year in February that is usually a lot of fun. This year was no different. The only non-fun part was getting up at 4 AM to get to the bus by 5 AM. The mountain is a little small, but it has a good variety of trails. It's also an ego-boosting trip for me because the difficulty ratings are extremely overblown. For instance, in Colorado, I usually ski blue-square runs most of the time, and venture onto the black-diamonds when I want a challenge. Double-blacks I tend to stay away from. Contrast this with Windham, where the second run I took was a double-black-diamond and it was not a problem. I could ski that all day. Contrast that with Jackson Hole, Wyoming where a blue run is pretty tough even when groomed, and black diamonds kick my ass, but I make it through. Thank goodness they use the blue-black classification as well, and I like those a lot, especially in the glades.
I had to wait in some nasty lift lines yesterday. I've never really had that be a problem anywhere else I've skiied(except for waiting on the tram at Jackson). It wasn't the end of the world, but waiting 10+ minutes every time you reached the bottom of the mountain really kinda ate up a lot of time during the day.
Only one person had an injury on the day. A kid came along who had never skiied before. He decided to try snowboarding, got to the top of the mountain, exited the lift, bent over to fasten his boot buckle and fell over, breaking his wrist. An hour later, he was in the lodge with a cast. Sidenote: he was being taught along with a 7 year old who had never skiied before by her uncle (the kids neighbor). He had to go to the hospital with the injured teenager, leaving the 7 year old alone at the mountaintop. The lift operator refused to allow her to ride the lift down. I didn't get the resolution of her issue, but she was back on teh bus at the end of the day so I know they at least didn't leave her up there for too long.
Today my legs are a little sore, but not as bad as I had expected. I should really hit the treadmill before March 14 so my ski pants fit a little more comfortably.
UPDATE -- Photos from my ski trip are finally up.
February 18, 2004
The Scope
I have few minutes to kill, as I'm on scan 58 of 75 in my timeseries bleaching experiment. Somehow I always end up here in this small dark room with a half-million dollar microscope waiting for it to scan. Sometimes I wish biological processes weren't so slow. I'm sure very little of this makes sense to some of you. I do this every week. Sometimes every day, for hours and hours. In between setting up the scans and rocking out to music on my iPod (how would I work without it?) I figured I might spend a little time blogging. I also decided to go in a slightly different direction with my blog, by talking about more science topics, since I read a lot of papers (ok, not that many) and online articles related to science and I hope that perhaps I'll get some interesting opinions on some of the topics.
Specifically, I love reading about the crazy genetic things that people do with animals, so some of the subjects may cross religious lines. There's always a danger in doing this, since you're really not supposed to talk about politics or religion on a first date. I figure I can maybe breach some religious topics since so many other people speak freely about politics. I realize that some of my ideas might torque some people off, and those people are not reading this post so I'm wasting my effort, but I don't intend to change anyone's beliefs. I'm not an evangelist (except maybe a scientific and logic evangelist, if that's possible).
If this blows up in my face, then I'll probably just go back to telling you about my life and posting pictures, which was the whole point of this blog/gallery anyway. So, yeah. Word.
"Sex Bomb, Sex Bomb. You're my sex bomb. You can give it to me when I need to come along." --Tom Jones
February 15, 2004
New Look
I'm experimenting with a new look for the site. I've started playing with stylesheets, so things may keep changing as I decide what I like and what I don't like. I went through a couple of variations with the title banner and I might post the other options to solicit opinions (ok, to show off my mad photoshop skillz). So, let me know if you like it or hate it.
February 10, 2004
Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show
[insert snare drum here] DOG SHOW!!!
I decided to skip work today and venture into Manhattan and attend the 128th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. It was not a terribly exciting event, but it was great to see all the different breeds of dog in one place, and the crowd was interesting. Behind me in line to buy my ticket was a 6' 9" (at least) transvestite. It took me 20 minutes of waiting in line before I realized the goat noises I kept hearing were actually coming from the throat of the man selling the programs (I suggest he finds a new line of work - perhaps a goat herder). There was a very high concentration of frumpy women in sweatshirts and old people. I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing them use the word "bitch" when referring to female dogs. Some choice quotes:
"Oh No! That Bitch has toes in."
"Get your bitch on the floor, now!"
"First he'll be judging the bitches."
And my personal favorite.
"Excuse me, is that your bitch? I like your bitch. I'd like to breed with your bitch"
I think the only places you're likely to hear comments like these are at a dog show or a party with Snoop Dogg.
A big part of the event was the table area, where all the dogs were staged together. The table area was very crowded, and I really got an opportunity to meet a lot of breeders and other nice dog-friendly people. I noticed that several of them were wearing furs and leather, and the hipocracy was not lost on me. They were generally agreeable people, and you could tell most of the dogs were very used to being shown at events like these, because they were extremely well behaved considering the circumstances. I was amused that the groomers used straightening irons, crimping irons, curlers, etc. to get the dogs looking sharp.
All in all, it was a great day. I'll have more photos once I get the film developed from my SLR, but until then you can enjoy some shots from my digicam.
February 09, 2004
Apple Store SoHo
Yeah, it's kinda lame, but I'm killing a little time in Manhattan before I catch the LIRR back home. I decided to spend it at the Apple Store in SoHo, otherwise known as church. Anyhoo, I'm terribly disappointed by the lack of iPod Minis on display. I'm in the city today because I attended the Westminster Kennel Club Dog show. More on that later, with pictures of many, many, many dogs.
Off to grab a pint.
February 05, 2004
Biopsy Results
In short: Good news, no cancer, keep an eye on it though.
My follow-up visit at the dermatologist was this morning, and the results are back. I don't have cancer, BUT the slides were "very abnormal" and I should have them checked out again every year. I don't know if this means they need to be biopsied every year or just examined, but I'll go back next January anyway.
What was abnormal about the biopsy? Well, there was a significant amount of "atypical fibrosis" just under the epidermal layer of skin. Basically, that means that there are a lot of pre-differentiated cells that have no real purpse except to divide and make more cells. After the cells divide, some of them differentiate into specific tissue type, in this case, skin epithelial cells. Except I have an extra patch of these cells in both the moles on my back, and this can eventually turn cancerous if they start growing out of control.
Luckily, this type of cancer, if it does develop, is fairly easy to treat by removing all the cancerous tissue which will leave me with a hole in my back and some stiches. It should heal nicely and I will have no other ill effects hopefully. But it hasn't come to that yet.
February 03, 2004
US States
I stumbled across a travel website which allows you to mark which states you've visited. I think I'm doing pretty well.
February 01, 2004
Half Time Show
I hear Janet Jackson but I see Dan Marino. Give me some of Janet Jackson and her airbrushed abs. Ok... here we go. Produced by MTV. Choose to Vote. Gotcha.
Jessica Simpson, girl, those boots are fierce! "I love the way you move" by the marching band. Awesome!!! Rock that Clarinet. And it's got coreography!!! Nice!!! I hope to see more of this.
Janet - wasn't this song popular over two years ago? I see no visible abs either. *snap* Except on her dancers. Nice leather bustier ($1500, I didn't care. It lifts and separates) I hope she gets to shake her tail feathers with that outfit on.
P.Diddy - He's on a conveyor belt. Hey Diddy? Oh God. And Nelly has arrived. It's still hot in herre, after all these years? Your dancers suck too by the way. Where's count 5? Ok, bye. And they take their clothes off.
Now, another old song, from when he was called Puff Daddy. Lip Syncing rap is so shameful.
Kid Rock - draped in an American flag. Ba-witta-ba. I do like his hat though. I wish people wore hats more often, and I don't mean baseball caps. Look at his chick drummer wail. Cowboy... this song was popular when I lived with Doogie and Wendy. Is this halftime show on a budget or is it just a re-run from 4 years ago?
Band kids scrambling around, people hanging from towers. Janet's name in lights. Am I going to get abs? No. But Rhythym Nation! KILLER!!! Go on quad-tom drummers! Janet has awesome boots, too. And I dig the leather backed chainmail skirt. Yeah drumline rocking out! And Now Janet's mic fails... right when I thought it was a lipsync.
Justing Timberlake. We get it, you can beatbox. Ok, a song from only one year ago. I hope he licks Janet Jackson, that'd be hot. Actually, I hope Janet makes him lick her boot. They dance and frolick. Janet pretends to sing the pre-recorded chorus.
HER TITTY POPPED OUT! HOLY SHIT!!!!
Show over.
Was that planned? It looked like she had a pasty on, but it might have been a nipple ring. It had to be planned. This show is totally tape delayed. But it was still cool, very Lil' Kim-esque.
Update: Well I'm sure you've already heard all the backpedaling and ass-covering that the executives involved are doing. Anyway, you can get a great photo of the "wardrobe malfunction" as J.T. calls it, on The Drudge Report.
Super Bowl
I'm having a lame superbowl. As such, I'm going to be trying to redesign my website. So I'll be scanning some photos, web surfing, and blogging about the commercials.
This could be very lame and boring, so be warned It's typed in real time and only verly lightly edited. Here we go.
January 29, 2004
Names in the Snow
Our last winter storm, or Nor'Easter as they call them here, delivered 10 inches of wondeful fluffly snow. On my way into work this morning there was a disturbingly nasty patch of yellow snow near the stairway in the parking ramp (I wont be parking on that level anymore). My mind started to wander as it often does, and somehow I made the mental leap that there are probably very very few feminie names written in the snow each winter (as a portion of the total, which is probably quite low). Well ladies, now you can join the fun.
Clearly there are more appropriate uses for this device, such as invading the men's room in a crowded bar. I bet if you whipped one of these out you'd get around of applause.
January 28, 2004
Pay Attention
I realized today that there is a Davis Cup tennis tournament next weekend at Mohegan Sun which is not too far from here, although it is in Conneticut. Also, while scrolling through their entertainment page I see that Barenaked Ladies are playing on February 20th, and then Rod Stewart is playing there in March. I really ought to keep better track of what concerts and shows are playing in my area.
Or maybe I should just save my money and get the ski boots.
January 27, 2004
Skiing
I just bought my airline tickets for skiing in Jackson Hole this March. I can't wait. After spending the whole evening on the phone convincing people that they really owe it to themselves to come vacation with me. It definitely promises to be a wondeful spring skiing holiday, with lots of Moose Drool for me in the Mangy Moose.
Woot!
Now I need to decide if I should spend the $300 to buy my very first set of ski boots (they are on sale at my local ski shop). I don't want to buy skis and poles, because it's a pain to haul them with you. Boots, however, are a big problem if you have to rent old uncomfortable ones. I'm thinking the investment might be worht it, since you can keep wearing them for many seasons. I think one evening I may go by there and try things on for size and comfort. I've also been wanting a new ski jacket since my old trusty Columbia parka is about 8 years old, and has been sent in for warranty repair twice. So if I get a new coat and boots plus pay for this ski trip things get damn expensive. Can't always have everything you want I suppose.
January 22, 2004
The Dermatologist
Today I went to the dermatologist because it's winter and my hands have started to fall apart. Generally they get dry and I use Neutrogena Hand Cream and things are ok until spring. But this winter they are still dry and cracking and bleeding. The dermatologist prescribed some new steroid cream and everything should be fine in 2 weeks he says.
Also, he checked my body for moles. Took a biopsy of 2 of them, and told me I might have cancer. Then I call my mom and she tells me that she had a cousin who died from cancer that started out as a mole. Would have been nice to put that on the "Family History" section of the paperwork I filled out, but oh well. So I have to wait 2 weeks for the results to come back.
Fingers Crossed
January 18, 2004
My life is a movie plot
I had a rockin' party (see below). I messed up the house. I have 36 hours to get the house back to perfection. Tick, tick, tick...
Scene 1: Saturday Morning
Once everyone was gone, I went to survey the damage. The carpet was a disaster. I don't have any before or after pictures, but it was horrible. I started using the Resolve carpet cleaner. Worthless. But I did notice a a LOT of suds, at which point I noticed the bottle of Tide on the bar.
Cut to me with buckets (yes, buckets) of water and a wet vac trying to rinse the Tide out of the carpet before it gets sticky and crunchy. Three hours pass.
Scene 2: Saturday Afternoon
The white carpet is now orange. I freak out. Then I find the Oxy Clean 2. I spend the next 2 hours on my hands and knees with a toothbrush and a stack of white cotton towels. Finally the carpet starts to look better. I decide to let it dry, and as I set up the fan I notice a chair pulled to the side. It's a month old. It's beautiful and tan, and a third of it is purple. Oh shit. Oxy clean again, except it turns bright blue. I hope it looks better when it dries.
Scene 3: Sunday Morning
It's snowing again, and the diffuse natural light falls on the carpet and the chair. The chair is still blue. I hit it with Oxy Clean 2 again. And I hope.
The carpet is still slightly orange, but much better. I hit it with Oxy Clean 2 again.
Scene 4: Sunday Afternoon
I clean the stove, finish the dishes and the laundry, the carpet looks fine. I vacuum. At this point, I just accept my fate, whatever it may be.
The power goes out (it's still snowing). The landlord comes home and I immediately confess. We both survey the disaster area and agrees that everything is clean. Actually he's less concerned with the mess, than he is that everyone had a good time. I relay the details of the evening, and he is very impressed. "I'm just disappointed that you didn't invite me."
Roll Credits.
It was THAT kind of a party, but we didn't have any mashed potatoes.
Friday night I invited the "European Union*" over for dinner and a movie. The menu was a mix and match pasta feast with spaghetti, fettuccini, and rigatoni for the pasta. Sauces included bolognese, creamy alfredo, and pesto. I also served salad, cheesy garlic bread, and sliced tomato & mozzarella with balsamic vinegar to accompany the entrees. For dessert we had mini cannolis and a pannetoni cake. We also had 10 bottles of wine, but more on that later.
Continue reading "It was THAT kind of a party, but we didn't have any mashed potatoes." »
January 07, 2004
iPods
I listen to music pretty much all day long, thanks to my iPod. I, like thousands of other people, have fallen in love with it. I was enamoured from the beginning, but 5 GB was a tad too small. I purchased my 10 GB model soon after they were released a couple of years ago and it's been going strong since. Actually, I had a couple of weird battery issues, but the Apple Stores in both Manhattan and Huntington were able to exchange them for me, so technically I'm on my third iPod, but I've only paid for one (and it's the same model).
Now Apple has released the iPod mini, which is only 4 GB and only $50 cheaper than the regular size 15 GB iPod. I think the mini's are very cool, as much of Apple's technology, but I'm confused as to what they're going for with it? It's small, but it's not THAT small, and for $50 more I'd definitely go for the extra space. I'm sure the fashonistas will love the it. I definitely think it will show up as a fasion accessory on runway models for fashion week this spring.
I currently have 1530 songs available to enjoy anytime, all organized into about 25 different playlists. I have so many types of different music loaded onto it that I don't dare use the shuffle feature on the whole library because I'm afraid I'll become schizophrenic. Right now I'm listening to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below album from Outkast. What a great set of albums. Truth be told, I listen to a lot of crap, like that Milkshake song by Kelis. I figure it all evens out. But sometimes by listening to enough crap you find a song that is really great. Like "Hey Mama" by the Black Eyed Peas. Anyway, I'll almost always listen to something once, so if you've heard your fair share of crap but stumbled on something that you really like, let me know. I just can't get enough.
As a sidenote, once I get the templates how I like them around here (like removing the horrible uppercase titles) I'm going to look into a way to live update what I'm hearing on my iTunes at work or at home. Or at least have it rotate through my top 10 played songs once a day.
January 05, 2004
Vacationing at Home
I'm house sitting this week for my landlords, and as such I have full use of their professional kitchen and home theatre. It's a bit of a shock since I haven't actually had to cook since the end of August, but I successfully grilled salmon filets and made rice and a mushroom and baby corn lemon butter dish. Gas stoves, what a concept. That and combination microwave/convection ovens. I also watched the following movies on DVD (or HBOHD): Old School, Zoolander, Adaptation, Blow, The Big Lebowski, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Blow is an excellent movie, Adaptation is bizzare and I loved it, and Old School is cackle worthy. All in all, it was a great way to spend a rainy weekend.
January 02, 2004
Shhhh... Stay Vewwy Vewwy Quiet
I am one of the very few people in the area who is working today, and I love it. The drive to work today was nearly traffic free. The parking lot was virutally empty, even at 9:15 AM. No students are around, and 80% of the staff are on vacation. My lab, however, is open - we're always open.
I love working on days like today because I can finally do things without fear of being interrupted by someone else's catastrophe. To be fair, a large portion of my job is simply being available for any and all interruptions, but it leads to some daily "frazzlement" (for lack of a better word). The luxury of remaining focused and only single-tasking for one day is such a nice change of pace. It's very quiet about the lab, and I like it.
December 31, 2003
Day 365
Today is the last day of the year. I could post some serious retrospective of how I spent my life in the past year, or the important events of the world, but I choose neither. Instead, I'm going to just post a chat transcript I had this morning with Josh. It pretty much sums up the year.
December 29, 2003
My Holiday
Christmas this year was pretty good to me. While I didn't plan my trip well enough in advance to travel back to Iowa, I did manage to find things to do on Long Island. Christmas Eve I spent the whole day watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The first two extended editions on DVD at a friend's house on his 42" Plasma TV with Harmon Kardon surround sound followed by the third at the theatre. It was a good day, and I've had my fill of The One Ring for now. I still can't wait for the extended edition of Return of the King. Then when I got home I opened presents with my landlords.
Christmas Day I slept in and spent some quality time in my jacuzzi with my Popular Photography magazine. Then I went to dinner at another friend's house from the lab, Iva. She's from Cyprus (and Bulgaria technically) and her boyfriend decided to grill a traditional Cypriot feast of lamb, beef, pork, and chicken. It was good. There were minimal vegetables. So we had a few bottles of wine, some Egg Nog, some vodka, it was a good night.
Afterwards I had a relatively quiet weekend of talking on the phone, uploading photos, and setting up this blog.
December 28, 2003
First Post
Well, I've been sufficiently pressured into doing this. Seems like I'm way behind the trend. My photo site is a bit more mature. Please check out my photo albums. Feel free to comment so I know people are actually reading this. Oh, and that goes for the gallery even more.