31 October 2005

happy halloween

so it's halloween. i've been a total loser this halloweentime. no pumpkin, no costume, nothing. but my mother just changed all that. i should say first that my mom loves 99cent stores, at least i can't imagine where else she gets all the crap she sends me. every holiday i get a little package full of stuff the existence of which i will never understand. but today's package had...a light-up candy ring.

i immediately pulled the tab to get the blinking light glowing and shoved the pop in my mouth. i am wearing it right now, it looks damn good. note to those thinking of proposing marriage to me: your chances of succeeding are GREATLY increased if you present me with one of these.

strange currencies

somethings from the weekend:

a guy who's family made swords drew a picture of my friend at
commonwealth.

my friend and i saw the same crazy lady screaming "i am a doctor! i am a married man!" at different times on the F.

i found (and bought) irish bacon in inwood.

a drunk yalie drove me crazy from 207 to 59th street talking about how hard his life is and how he is treated like a "slave" by Morgan Stanley. for clarification, he wasn't talking to me, but the 14oz of his 40oz that were already inside him was increasing the volume exponentially.

i was removing a longsleeve shirt from under a shortsleeve shirt on the street in dumbo and was halfway done when i gave directions to a russian woman in a car who thought the best way to brighton beach was over the brooklyn bridge.

i accidentally sent a text message containing some rather embarassing information to
dodgeball, luckily, they did not dispatch it to all my friends.

i saw a bunny rabbit repeatedly rape a guinea pig.

it turns out that if a recipe for brunswick stew calls for five pounds of pork and chicken, it will yeild more stew than you have containers in which to store it.

brunswick stew is delicious, but i'm already sick of it.


brooklyn pennant ale is still available.

28 October 2005

so much better than cliff's notes

my friends at monoki found this delicious little morsel of giggles. surely you've all seen calvin pissing on a ford logo stuck to the back of a chevrolet. but have you ever seen slaughterhouse five so concisely summed up?





and for an extra present, here's the complete works of shakespeare given the same treatment...

in honor of $1 fares that won't save you a penny

here are some of this week's scheduled inconveniences:

Ns stop at Dekalb

Rs over the bridge to Dekalb

and, holy shitballs:
F no diversions scheduled

you might actually get somewhere this weekend!

Safety reminder of the week: Please use handrails on stairs and escalators.

that was fast

delta announced that it will retire song by may 2006. i think it just started like a year or so ago...although i couldn't ever find cheap flights with it.

you could get carded for buying eggs this weekend



would i lie? staten island is cracking down on vandalism this hallowe'en and that means asking store owners not to sell products such as shaving cream and eggs to minors and they're urging them to hang posters and fliers pushing the "no eggs and shaving cream" message.

i heard on the radio that they were supposed to card anyone that looked under 27 (does that mean that 27 is the age at which egging and shaving creaming people is no longer fun?) and refuse to sell the verboten items to minors.

just in case you were wondering, this is retarded.

i thought it was me!

i totally had McCann's instant irish oatmeal, maple & brown sugar flavor, yesterday for breakfast. later on, i kept smelling it again and wondering how the hell i was still smelling the oatmeal i had for breakfast at like 11pm...turns out i guess i was smelling whatever the hell everyone else was smelling...i think it was just that everyone finally caved and had oatmeal for breakfast because it was so bloody cold yesterday.

i will take this opportunity to say that a friend i saw in atlanta this weekend confessed to me that even though she hated it when i ate oatmeal in college, she's now addicted to it. i am one dangerous individual.

here's a quote that makes no sense:
I thought it was like a baker was making sugar or something and they left it burning

how many bakers do you know "make" sugar?

"we got drunk at brooklyn"

this is a direct quote from a friend last night. he knew i would do this, and he'll probably never read it, so everything works out well.

i took hold of life and for the last time (i'm guessing) until spring walked over the brooklyn bridge on my way home. i've been doing it a lot lately and it's really nice. but now it will be dark. and depressing.

anyway, i met above mentioned friend for the gowanus canal blues & cruise to benefit the
dredgers, sos they can build a boathouse. good enough for me. they have super cute t-shirts, which i resisted. for $25 we got all you can eat bbq (sort of) and lots of brooklyn lager (yum!).

unfortunately, we got there a little "late" (it had started at 6, we got there around 7) and had missed the mac 'n' cheese, veggies and most of the mashed potatoes (i managed to scrape some off the tray). but there were amazingly delicious ribs, some very weird pork tacos, teeny tiny tasty hamburgers, chicken i didn't taste, veggie burgers i didn't taste and hot dogs i did taste that were also yummy.


they were doing boat rides on the canal but i was just too freaking cold for that shit. there was a pirate and a pretty fun "bluegrass & sebastian" band (my friend's words, not mine). the smell of fire and fall floated through the breeze and the bread pudding was cold by the time it got to the table, but still delicious. we hung out for about an hour, ate & drank our money's worth and then ran to the warming arms of brooklyn social. then the even more warming and closer-to-home arms of commonwealth. their new patio is the bomb. i can't wait for spring to come so we can use it!

also, wild cherry pepsi tastes pretty good with some balvenie.

27 October 2005

i don't think he's been on the OC yet

stream andrew bird's new one here.

bugger, bugger, bugger

a tipster just reminded me it's almost november which reminded me that i was planning all day and forgetting to post this vital information:

SET YOUR MOTHERFUCKING CLOCKS BACK BEFORE YOU GO TO BED ON SATURDAY.
actually, it's probably a better idea to set them back before you go out saturday...

this has been a public service announcement.

once again, the final product is part of the recipe

seeing as how it's bitch-cold and i was just down south, i've been looking for a good recipe for brunswick stew. our old friends at cooks.com have come up with this gem:

BRUNSWICK STEW

1 (24 oz.) can Brunswick Stew

1 lg. can Beef B.B.Q.
1 lg. can Pork B.B.Q.
1 can cream corn
1-2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c. B.B.Q. Sauce
Mix all of the ingredients together and let come to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer. The longer it simmers the better it tastes. You can also use a crock pot for this.


what, exactly, is "can beef bbq"? where does it come from? is it like potted meat food product? (and yes that is "pork brains in milk gravy" in the corner there. and i have to say, having "personal cleansing" and "food products" as links says you're a classy website.)

quelle shock!

our lovable B63 is one of the slowest busses in all of new york city! congratulations yet again.

just so y'all know

I was walking downtown last night when i passed something magical: a street vendor roasting chestnuts. i personally don't enjoy the taste of chestnuts, but it was always a big thing in my family to cook them this time of year. anyway, the guy's at 54th and 5th if you've gotta love jones for chestnuts.

kexp

kexp has iron & wine/calexico up. it's lovely.

absolutely gorgeous "all tomorrow's parties" about 15 minutes in.

Miers Withdraws from Bush's Asshole

The president said he would fill the vacant Supreme Court seat in his own time. Funny, he was certainly in a rush to get ol' HM in there...

26 October 2005

children of the (candy) corn

there are strollers up and down the corridor and about 7 kids in the conference room. our office is awash with cute. luckily, there was dip.

a moment of silence

2,000

feel the southern breezes and the southern wind

one of my high school friends got married this weekend, so i went down to the atl for some free food and ketubah signing action (i was a witness).

i arrived late evening at hartsfield airport and was immediately reminded that the pace is different down here. people wander aimlessly through the whole airport. it's almost like they're trying not to get anywhere. there is absolutely no concept of "stand on the right" on escalators. it's more like: "stand on the left, put your bag on the step above you on the right and talk on the phone the whole ride". not that it particularly slowed me down, i was in no mood to walk up the escalator, but it was strange to see people scattered willy-nilly all over the stairs.

georgia welcomed me home with a thunderstorm. it was pretty cool seeing the lightning from the plane. i was hoping we'd get hit so i'd have something interesting to tell people when i got there: "yeah, the plane was struck by lightning, it was rad". no such luck.

saturday, i'd arranged to meet some friends from college "at that restaurant in the strip mall that didn't used to be there by glenridge". none of us could remember the name, but somehow we all knew where it was. it turned out to be the "new york deli". i warned them as we walked in that they would have to listen to me complain about how "that's not what xyz is like in new york". and i did. southern rye bread is bizarre. and not in a good way. they were out of corned beef hash (until the day i die i will not understand how this happened at 1130 on a saturday. and surely there's a publix or kroger nearby, go buy some!), and the waitress came over to tell me this and offered nothing in return. "we're out of corned beef hash" and that was the end of it. i think she didn't like me because i quizzed her on their tea selection. she brought out orange pekoe and i said i just wanted a black tea and what brand was it because i don't like lipton. blah blah, apparently she did not enjoy this.

it was kind of funny because the walls were decorated with brooklyn dodgers shit and pictures of the bridge. oh, and what we call the "lumberjack" breakfast up here is called "the great bambino" down there. go figure.

that night was the wedding. it was super swank and really fun. they had a rad band that cured me of having "boogie oogie oogie" stuck in my head for about three weeks when they played it. and when the couple were hoisted up for the Hora, they were both wearing the, "i think this is fun but i also think i might die rather soon" look on their faces reminiscent of someone's first ride on the
Cyclone. they had a "martini" bar with an ice sculpture luge, which hadn't been properly measured and spewed fruity cocktails all over the place, usually missing the martini glass entirely. there were also deeeelicious lamb chops as hors d'ouvres, which i didn't mind whilst i was eating, but many of the black-tie wearing attendees found themselves walking around with lamb bones, wondering what the hell to do with them. i still managed to eat about 10.

i ran into
specific gravity's own tampson at the wedding and we are soon to be launching (pending name availability) teamblog for your reading (and possibly listening) pleasure. we traded blog love and talked about rss feeds until we realized we were at a wedding talking about rss feeds and that we are nerds.

one of the highlights of the evening, at least for me, was when i lost a bobbie pin down the back of my dress and my best friend spent about three minutes with her hand down the back of my dress, whilst we were on the dancefloor--and dancing--fishing it out. (she was successful.)

we foraged for late-night drinks after the wedding ended and ended up at the bar of the palm. not my first choice generally, but it was in the same building as the wedding (read: the westin) and it was open. the bride & groom eventually made their way down and were very sweet and excited. and then they went, in their wedding gear, to dantana's, which used to be a Bennigan's. it was pretty fucking hot.

sunday there was a great deal of shopping.
le crueset has an outlet and it is the closest thing to heaven i've seen.

sunday night a friend and i went to
daddy d'z (nuts) for some bbq. it was pretty good but the chicken was dried out. it reminded me that i want to make some brunswick stew one of these days. just have to find the right recipe.

then we drove through
atlantic station. it turns out the fireworks i'd seen from the plane (also v. cool) were for the grand opening of this monstrosity. it's the most ridiculous, frightening thing i've ever seen. a fake town, a mall you can live in, a place where nothing is real. it's real fucked up, people, that's about all i can say.

there was more shopping monday followed by tapas dinner. tuesday was the victory lap to WaHo, where everything kicked ass (including the "casa de waffle" hot sauce) except the fact that they stuck the waho logo into all the waffles. which is just kinda weird. then mommy made me a roast beef dinner and it was yumsters.

finally i got on the flight back to the place where they stand on the right and walk like there's somewhere to go. i sat down next to the window an d started playing with the piece of trash jammed under the shade. i was all excited that it would be a communique from the previous flight's passenger with all sorts of classified and interesting information, like who killed jfk and where babies come from; but when i finally dislodged it, the shade slammed shut. someone had stuck it up there to hold it open, and i replaced it. i then had a hearty chuckle (much to my seatmate's surprise and confusion) thinking about the people who would inevitably get on the plane, pull out the piece of crumpled up magazine, realize what it was there for and jam it right back.

i am pretty sure i am one of the first people to see snow this season. as we were landing, we passed through a mid-level snowstorm that clearly melted to rain by the time it hit the city. it was purty.

21 October 2005

because the real olsen twins aren't evil enough

gawker politely pointed out this story about white supremecist twins who sing about being aryan babies...here're some of the highlights:

the girls from Bakersfield, Calif., have been performing songs about white nationalism before all-white crowds since they were nine.

Lynx and Lamb have been nurtured on racist beliefs since birth by their mother April.

April's father surrounds the family with symbols of his beliefs — specifically the Nazi swastika. It appears on his belt buckle, on the side of his pick-up truck and he's even registered it as his cattle brand with the Bureau of Livestock Identification.

and in case you didn't pay enough attention there, he's even registered it as his cattle brand with the Bureau of Livestock Identification.

The lyrics praise [Rudolph] Hess as a "man of peace who wouldn't give up."

"Eleven and 12 years old," [Erich Gliebe] said, "I think that's the perfect age to start grooming kids and instill in them a strong racial identity."

April had decided that Bakersfield was not "white" enough, so she sold her home, and hopes that she and the girls can find an all-white community in the Pacific Northwest.

good samaritain i am

even though i won' t be here this weekend, i am still kindly posting the subway diversions...

(it looks like things are moving again on the 6th & 8th ave lines, except at w4th itself.)

F trains: Coney bound running express from Jay to Church (i.e., Jay, 7th, Church)
Uptown trains skipping 14th & 23rd (and probably w4th)

N trains: stop at Dekalb Ave

R trains: over the bridge both ways (canal to dekalb)

happy subwaying...

oddly the "safety reminder of the week" is:
Safety reminder of the week

whoops

am new york was only reporting that the guy had been kidnapped, but the times has him dead.

it apparently does not pay to defend Awad Hammad Albander (one of Saddam's cohorts).

fuck you, you fucking fuck

well, the good ole MTA is 2 for 5 on the week. i've heard horror stories from almost every line and nothing seems to be improving. as for myself, here goes:

we got stopped at york street and told to get on the bklyn train to jay street and xfer to the ace. i figured i might as well stay where i was and i had about 20lbs on my back since i'm leaving town tonight so i wasn't really into a whole lot of changing trains, etc. but i ended up having to walk from york street to borough hall, which is fucking annoying. luckily the 4,5 was running and got me to work only 1 hour late.

please, give me my $1 weekend fares, it will make me feel so much better!

and now, the media:

ap
ny1
daily news
times (w/pic!)

20 October 2005

Skeptics of the World Unite!

the Times proves i'm not the only one who doesn't trust the MTA as far as it goes on a weekend night...

oh my god, beware, Logic ahead:
"There's no question that the most responsible use of the money would be to pay down the authority's unfunded pension liability. The M.T.A. is a monopoly service provider. If they want to buy good will, they should improve service."

just what kind of crazy talk is this? improve service you say? cut the pension liability? utter madness. no, we shall give a band aid and a licorice-flavored lollipop to the girl who's hand has been chopped off. do not, i repeat, do not, sew the hand back on!

and to make matters worse, the f i was riding on this morning pulled into the E platform at w4th and it was announced that it would be making all stops on the E line due to a stalled train at Spring Street. i love how the f just isn't that important. nooo, the E must be covered. screw people on the f.

i hate the mta.

Today in Iraqi Violence

Mortar attack on school, suicide bomb in car

There was no immediate indication of American casualties in addition to the civilian deaths. There was damage to at least one Humvee, said an Interior Ministry source

because we care about the iraqis, really we do.

19 October 2005

save the clock tower

everyone knows that the atlantic yards development is shit. last night there was a public hearing which was apparently every bit as raucous as it should have been. i managed to pick up one of those bundles of propaganda ratner's buddies are touting as newspapers, the brooklyn standard, and it's even worse than i imagined. it's literally 8 pages or so of pro-arena, pro-development bullshit. from the article about how frank gehry is going to be "brooklyn's arichtect" (or something to that effect) to how the development would create so many jobs and places to live. it's manipulation at its worst on a grand scale.

but the point is, we still have a chance to stop this idiocy from happening. the hearing was mainly to discuss things like how the sidewalk outside,
the Gehry-designed concert hall in Los Angeles had exceeded 136 degrees. "Passing motorists were blinded by the glare, while pedestrians had to cross the street to avoid the intense heat," she said.

dddb has some handy-dandy info if you want to submit your own testimony to the impact the project will have on bklyn...
You may submit written testimony up until 5:00 p.m. on October 28th, either by mail to:Atlantic Yards
c/o Planning & Environmental Review
Empire State Development Corporation
633 Third AvenueNew York, NY 10017
or via email to:atlanticyards@empire.state.ny.us

uh, gulp?

hurricane wilma is one mean bitch.

strongest hurricane ever recorded, the US National Hurricane Center says.
this is gonna be a fun one, kids.

i like elephants

so here's a picture of a wee one...



i am a good person to have around

my friend just sent me this quick quiz where you guess if he's a computer programmer language inventor or a serial killer. i got 9/10!!

don't let those bastards fool you

there's a lot of hulabaloo about the proposed holiday fare reductions. it's a sweet concept, but a lot of the reductions won't impact many new yorkers. i think the biggest beneficiaries of this will be irritating fanny-pack wearers (i.e., tourists). plus, you can only get the special "39-day metrocard" if you buy it with cash. why? i use transitchecks, and i think they're great. a lot of people use them. the mta should be encouraging their use, not rewarding people who use cash...it's just stupid.

and, as per usual, i'd much rather see every cent going to cleaning up stations and improving the system overall...there's plenty that needs to be taken care of. i see how a lot of people are gonna get really excited over the idea of saving a few bucks a weekend, but it's sort of too little, too late. we're already used to paying $2 a ride, so just make the ride better.

slice of life

it just took me about 20 mintues and three attempts to scan an 8-page document. about how jews are smarter...not so much?

New York Magazine.

in lieu of bombings, today we bring you

saddam being a royal prick in court...

The judge asked Mr. Hussein to say his full name. The exchange abruptly turned combative, with Mr. Hussein refusing to obey and instead launching into short criticisms of the immediate restrictions on him, such as an order preventing his lawyers from bringing pens and paper into the courtroom.

"You know me, because you are an Iraqi," Mr. Hussein said, adding, "I don't recognize the parties that appointed you to this court."

In all, Mr. Hussein could face charges for the killings of more than 300,000 people, mostly Shiites and Kurds.

18 October 2005

who are the pedophiles in your neighborhood?

some guys rigged google maps to find convicted sex offenders. there are three just outside ward 22, but none within. yet.

(by way of fark)

holy fucktard

it seems US News & World Report is saying that rumors are flying around the white house that "evil" Dick Cheney may resign...which would put condi in the #2 seat.

revenge is ours

last night WYB had a double-header at floyd and we won both games! it was emotional to say the least. the best part is we beat the kids that won the playoffs last spring. arrgghh!!!

am nerddom

here's a really freaking fascinating story about what's happening in yellowstone now that the wolf population is coming back. it really has effected everything there...

17 October 2005

the more you know

so, i was talking to a friend of mine and we were discussing old, skanky cookies and how to reanimate them into delictability...so he broke out some old skool weed knowledge:

put them in a ziploc bag with a little bit of wet paper towel. your shwag will be kind in no time.

bodega bodrama

so, after seeing the wonderful and talented john vanderslice at southpaw on saturday. i went to a friend's party. i had every intention of getting home at a reasonable hour, and as long as you count 5am as reasonable, i achieved my goal.

due mostly to laziness, i hadn't eaten dinner that night and so whilst skipping home with my roommate and a friend, i decided to hit up a local bodega for their amazing bbq chicken sandwiches (read: the kind of food one only thinks about eating when drunk). i walked up to the window (the door was locked and they have one of those lazy susan type things) and asked the guy for four sannies...he was dancing around like he was in an ipod commercial and brandishing some object in his right hand. when he came closer to the window, he aimed said object at me and screamed with hysterical laughter. at first i thought it was a gun, but much to my, not-so-much-relief, it turned out to be a
small axe. a hatchet if you will. or in cockney: "'atchet". however you pronounce it, it surprised the hell out of me.

what was really interesting was how this guy was just waving it around and giggling. despite ordering four bbq chicken sandwiches, we got home to discover that we had two fried chicken sandwiches and two cheeseburgers, which we ate anyway. during this meal, my roommate and i discussed the probablility that the clerk was a) on a lot of drugs, b) recently escaped from some state or federal institution, c) not actually an employee there, but a guy who brutally murdered the real clerk and threw his chopped up body in the beer cooler or d) all of the above.

the next day my roommate informed me that he'd been down to the deli below our apartment and asked about our missing again sunday times...turns out they again denied all knowledge of it. but it also turns out they saw me stealing (what i am 90% sure was) our sunday times back from their newspaper rack last weekend. so i think i can't go to the deli on my corner anymore...whoops.

you get the best of my love

here's some good stuff from the voice's "best of ny" issue...

best indoor bocce: floyd!!!

best mural at a burrito place:
clemen's

best place to escape the 21st century:
les tenement museum

best place to blah blah blah blah:
melody lanes

best url-turned-verb:
flavorpill

best view of backyard pools:
f train btw. carroll & smith/9th st

best bar at the end of the universe:
lillie's

best drunken scrabble:
commonwealth

most savory slope carryout:
kinara

best reason to eavesdrop:
overheardinny

best bar to hear boney m while snacking on free pizza:
capone's

best blog for knowing what scenster concerts to avoid every night: brooklynvegan

best landmark yet to be exploited: the high line

ho, ho, ho, it's magic

well, gawker and the village voice declare the magician doa. i have only been to two birthday parties there, and rarely in between, but i see what the point of the story is. most of the draw, i guess, is that there's a lot of room and you and your birthday can take over that entire back room...

major barbara

i've just got wind of this ridiculous plan to put a gap in where the salvation army store used to be on 5th ave. a friend sent me this post from curbed, which i followed to this post on only the blog knows brooklyn.

seems not only is it gonna be a gap, but a
bloody gap fucking kids. behold the vomit rising in my throat.

it's always been really nice living in park slope, we only have two starbucks, two mcdonald's, two subways, a quiznos and the b&n in terms of mega-chains (i suppose the numbers go up if you count 3rd & 4th ave...) and for the most part both 5th and 7th avenue have their own character. but a gap signals a very bad turn in my opinion. hopefully i'm just overreacting.

anyway otbkb also has this handy-dandy list of what's changing in the 'hood:
THE CIRCLE GAME: OPENINGS, CLOSINGS, CHANGES, AND RELOCATIONS:
--Beet. Thai Cuisine. Seventh Avenue betwee 9th and 10th (Opening October 18)

--Something new. Seventh Avenue between 13th and 14th (Opening in Nov.)
--Toy Space. Seventh Avenue between 14th and 15th Street (Now Open)
--The Gap. 13th and Fifth Avenue. In the old Salvation Army (Opening TBA)
--Perch, a new restaurant on Fifth Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets (opening soon).
--Rare Device: 453 Seventh Avenue (in the process of opening).
--Expansion of D'Vine Taste. Seventh Avenue nr. Garfield (in progress).
--What's going in between Union and Berkeley??? (anyone know?)
--Good Footing on Seventh Avenue at Union is GONE!
--Brooklyn Industries on Seventh Avenue near 9th Street (Now open)
--Living on Fifth. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets (Now open)
--The Black Pearl. Union Street between 7th and 6th Avenue (Now open)
--Rachel's Taqueria on Fifth Avenue between 6th & 7th Sts. (Now open)
--What's gone in instead of Cornbread Cafe? (Does this mean Cornbread closed and i didn't even notice??)
--Microchip Cafe moved into the same storefront as the Car Service on 1st between Seventh and Sixth Avenue (Now open).

in other (and far more important) news, the gate is serving pumkinhead ale, and brooklyn social is hawking what i think is a sixpoint pumkin...

just the way you look tonight

first off, i give up on cameron crowe. ever since "jerry maguire", i've been more and more cynical about his movies. "almost famous" came back to his old form a little, but everything else has been rubbish. which explains why i went to see "elizabethtown" on its opening night. call me a glutton for punishment. i'm pretty sure i never want to look at orlando bloom's big, brown eyes again. suffice it to say, it was horribly schmaltzy.

we headed downtown to
bar 169 for a drink. one drink too many. what is perhaps the worst band in the entire world was on when we got there, the aptly named "tiger vomit". i am a notoriously slow beer drinker--we were out of there in 15 minutes.

eventually i found myself waiting for a friend at
brooklyn social club. it's been quite some time since i went to a bar on my own on a friday night. it's so interesting to watch how people respond to you. a few people came over and started chatting. one guy and i decided we would start making it impossible to let others pass between us by standing at just the wrong angle and proximity. i chatted with him and his friends for a while.

when i finally got an empty seat at the bar, the bartender looked at me and said, "i understand". i didn't, really. did he understand that i was just there waiting on a friend, contentedly watching the others around me? did he think i was being stood up, that i was 'drinking alone', that i just wanted to be left entirely alone? it made me wonder. one guy at the end of the bar kept smiling at me, despite the fact that i never smiled back. i suppose it wasn't the nicest reaction, but i didn't have the energy to talk to a stranger.

my friend arrived, and throughout the evening we were entertained by various men in various states of drunkenness offering up interesting conversation and all sorts of services. the bartender, who turned out to be super cool, was always looking out for us. when one guy, who i see at social aaaaallll the time, started talking to us, he said to me "let me know if someone's leaning over too far". it's nice when they get your back like that. i asked that guy his name, but i can't for the life of me remember. he was followed by a completely wankered brit called sammy. i suppose he was a regular as well, because the barman shot me a look when he came over that said, "just let me know..." it wasn't an if with sammy, but a when.

and it came like this: after i made some comment about the town he was from being sort of shitty (don't worry, he couldn't have cared less), he said to me, "i would have sex with you whatever you said". and that he would have, had he even a chance in hell with me or my friend, and assuming he wasn't so drunk he couldn't get it up. a few minutes later, we were still insulting the hell out of the guy when he declared, "i would love to go down on either one of you." i'm sure you know what happened next: my friend and i paid the tab, grabbed sammy and took him back to my place, where he pleasured us for the next 15 hours. actually, barman extraordinaire suggested sammy leave us alone, and he did. i was still laughing and saying, "i would love to go down on either one of you" 20 minutes later. god bless drunk people who say stupid things.

not more than 10 minutes later, some new guys had come along and for reasons beyond both my control and comprehension, i started talking to them in an irish accent. who knows?

the mta: making mondays even more annoying

i awoke this morning from the deadest kind of sleep. the kind where you don't even realize you're asleep, you're just somewhere else when that horrid sound of an alarm comes drifting down your ear canal. my duvet begged me to stay, but like a girl waking up in a frat house on saturday morning, i knew it was time to get out.

in my grogginess, i only vaguely noticed the increased frequency of stops and lengthy rests in the stations. but as the f train pulled into 14th street, the conductor came over the PA and said, without any further explanation, "this train is out of service". and with that hundreds of sleepy, annoyed, confused yet still apathetic new yorkers emerged from the train and looked at each other. i started to wonder if maybe i should just hop a downtown train, go back home and reunite with my duvet.


most of us figured we'd just wait for the next train, but the voice from above recommended we all get on a downtown f train and take it to west 4th, where we could transfer to an uptown d (the people trying to get to 23rd street had a major nightmare ahead of them, i'm hoping they just walked). so we all went up the stairs and walk along the corridor to change to uptown, when we hear our defunct f pull out of the station. "surely, there'll be another train along in a moment," i thought. so i went back downstairs to the uptown platform. and in comes a v, which luckily, gets me nearer to my job than the f. we then proceeded to make excruciatingly slow progress until i got to my stop no fewer than 25 minutes late. hurrah mta!

14 October 2005

you don't really want to go anywhere, anyway

Manhattan bound F, no smith/9th, carroll or bergen action

G no action between smith/9th, hoyt-schermerhorn

N stops at dekalb both ways

R over the bridge both ways

and don't forget:
Carry babies and folded strollers on the stairs.

uh, vote and die?

some sunni party outposts in iraq have been attacked, a day before voting on a referendum is to occur.

Many Sunni parties oppose the text, and have called on Iraqis to boycott the poll or vote "No".

Earlier this week, the Islamic Party said it would encourage Sunnis to support the constitution after Shia and Kurdish political leaders agreed to consider further revisions after elections in December.

Sunni leaders fear the current proposals may lead the country to split, with a Kurdish north and Shia south, depriving Sunni Arabs of access to the country's oil resources.

a question for the ages

does honda know they're using a song about nuclear holocaust to advertise the new civic?

rainy lunchtime stuff

the underrated blog did us the favor of making a rainy day mix. listen to it.

then go listen to saints & lovers cover one of my favorite joy division songs.

india will save us!!

india's making some flu vaccine...we're all safe.

have you noticed it's still raining?

now is around the time of year when i start saying on a daily basis, "i wish i had a fireplace". and wondering what it feels like to sweat.

yesterday, whilst sitting in synagogue and then at home fasting, i had my first bout of the year with ice hands and nose. i think i have super shitty circulation, and that causes my hands and nose (and, if not encased in socks & shoes, feet) to turn into pieces of ice. sometimes i put my hand on my stomach just to shock myself with how cold it is.

either way, it's times like this--before the heat comes on in our apartment, and while i still have short-sleeved shirts in my ready-to-wear pile--that i hate living in park slope. because lots of people in park slope have fireplaces, and they taunt me with the fragrance of burning wood and images of warmth.

when i was growing up in atlanta we had a fireplace, and i was constantly asking my parents if i could build a fire. many times i was told it was simply too warm outside for a fire. (for the record, i don't think 68 is warm.) when i lived on 7th ave and 1st street in a hellhole above starbucks, we had a fireplace, but all it did was sit gaping and useless--it was capped.

two, no, three fireplaces burn in my heart when i smell that smell of heated brick...make that four...in order of impressiveness:

1) the north rim of the grand canyon.
i'm pretty sure this is the fireplace to end all fireplaces. although i was young and smaller when i was there, i'm still confident that it was roughly ten feet high and about 18 feet wide and they burned redwood logs in it. it faces outside, onto a terrace which is populated by rocking chairs. my dad and i sat out on a very clear, starry night and rocked and looked at the fire as it thrust its warmth out into the night air. the giantest fire i've ever seen. someday i will build my own.


2) my uncle's hunting camp
you're not allowed up without a member of the hunting club, which is truly unfortunate, because given the chance i would round up about 25 of my closest drinking buddies and tear this place up. it's a mish mosh of old furniture from members' houses, black & white photographs of ancestral hunters, bunk beds and a huge kitchen with, oh yes, a "beer fridge". but the focal point of the cabin is the fireplace, again vast, about four feet high and six wide, i'd say. not only is the fireplace huge, but being a hunting camp, the logs are big, burly, manly logs. the fire is encouraged to rage to just before the point it licks out of its cage and takes us all down. "beer fridge"

3) my aunt and uncle's house
this is much more along the lines of a regular fireplace, the only difference being that the firebox sticks out from the house, allowing for a much deeper than usual place to burn stuff. my uncle also rigged some thing that you open a sort of trap door and it pulls in air from outside, feeding the fire constantly with fresh o2. further, my uncle, a retired LIRR safety inspector, made the raddest log-holder-thingy ever out of railroad tracks. they are giant and solid and one day i will build a fire so great they will turn red. maybe. my aunt and uncle will let me start a fire when it's 68, because they keep thier air con at 50.

4) my great aunt's house in maine
my mother's aunt is amazing. she's travelled all over the goddamn place and owns two remarkable properties. she and a friend, many years ago, bought up a recently-abandoned resort in the tiniest town possible in maine. litterally, the town is a post office, which isn't even operational anymore. anyway, they kept one of the buildings and converted the downstairs from all bedrooms into a kitchen and living room, etc. (this was one of those seriously old school places that had a dining hall and a rec room (which is still standing) and various other building with just sleeping quarters.) and now she spends her summers there. we went there almost yearly for a lot of my childhood. the house only had heating in the kitchen and bathrooms, and since it was a summer resort, was certainly nowhere near insulated; but the fireplace's chimney ran up through the second floor and if you burned enough wood long enough, it would do a pretty fair job of taking the chill out of the air in the whole house. the fireplace is lovely brick and decorated with all sorts of random maine trinkets, but the greatest thing about it is how it was actually functional. it was necessary to build a fire in that thing, or we'd all be freezing.


so now i come home under my umbrella, kicking water onto my calves, hands 20 degress colder than the rest of my body, and i see whisps of smoke coming out of chimneys, and i smell that smell, and i wish i had a fireplace.

12 October 2005

sadness of the day

here's another bomb in iraq.

i know all three of you out there reading will be heartbroken, but this will be it until friday. i am leaving early and someone found a bunch of work for me to do today. tomorrow i will be atoning my ass off for all the sarcasm and bitchiness i've amassed over the last year. forgive me, i'm forgiving (most of) you.

see you friday.

11 October 2005

lordy

A pink Madonna iPod is also in the works...

train in vain

i know am new york punned on this very headline this morning, but they did it tastelessly for the subway hoax, so i'm doing it again.

my online loves waxy and lifehacker are both on the ball with these new google subway maps...it's like all there and stuff. you just roll over the place and it tells you what stop it is. it's super helpful if you're going somewhere new and you're not sure which stop is nearest. yeah!

get the cool, get the cool shoeshine

gizmodo rocks some freakin' awesome speakers. they look nothing at all like speakers. they probably don't sound so hot, either, but we like them anyway.

i think i'm 1.5 star today

which is pretty good. it is only tuesday.

my friend over at specific gravity found the hangover rating system from about.com...


One Star Hangover
No pain. No real feeling of illness. Your sleep last night was a mere disco nap, which has given you a whole lot of misplaced energy. Be glad that you are able to function relatively well. However, you are still parched. You can drink 10 sodas and still feel this way. You are craving a steak bomb and a side of gravy fries.

Two Star Hangover
No pain, but something is definitely amiss. You may look okay but you have the mental capacity of a staple gun. The coffee you are chugging is only exacerbating your rumbling gut, which is craving a rootie tootie fresh and fruity pancake breakfast from IHOP. There is some definite havoc being wreaked upon your bowels.

Three Star Hangover
Slight headache. Stomach feels crappy. You are definitely not productive. Anytime a girl walks by you gag because her perfume reminds you of the random gin shots you did with your alcoholic friends after the bouncer 86'd you at 1:45 a.m. Life would be better right now if you were in your bed with a dozen donuts and a meatball hero watching the E! fashion awards. You've had 4 cups of coffee, a gallon of water, 3 Snapples and a liter of diet coke, yet you haven't peed once.

Four Star Hangover
Life sucks. Your head is throbbing. You can't speak too quickly or else you might puke. Your boss has already lambasted you for being late and has given you a lecture for reeking of booze. You wore nice clothes, but that can't hide the fact that you missed an oh-so crucial spot shaving, (girls, it looks like you put your make-up on while riding the bumper cars.) Your eyes look like one big vein and your hair style makes you look like a reject from the class picture of Grover Cleveland HS, class of '84.

Five Star HangoverAKA "Dante's 4th Circle of Hell."
You have a second heartbeat in your head, which is actually annoying the employee who sits in the next cube. Vodka vapor is seeping out of every pore and making you dizzy. You still have toothpaste crust in the corners of your mouth from brushing your teeth in an attempt to get the remnants of the shit fairy out. Your body has lost the ability to generate saliva, so your tongue is suffocating you. Death seems pretty good right now. You definitely don't remember who you were with, where you were, what you drank and why there is a stranger still sleeping in your bed at your otherwise empty house.

Six Star Hangover
Otherwise known as the "Infinite Nut smacker" You wake up on your bathroom floor. For about 2 seconds you look at the ceiling, wondering if the cool refreshing feeling on your cheek is the bathroom tile or your vomit from 5 hours ago. It is amazing how your roommate was as drunk as you, but somehow managed to get up before you. You try to lift your head. Not an option. Then you inadvertently turn your head too quickly and smell the funk of 13 packs of cigarettes in your hair. Suddenly you realize you were smoking, but not ultra lights... some jackass handed you Marlboro reds, and you smoked them like it was your second full time job. You look in the mirror only to see remnants of the stamp "Ready to Rock" faintly atop your forehead... the stamp on the back of your hand that has magically appeared on your forehead by alcoholic osmosis. You have to be to work in t-minus 14 minutes and 32 seconds and the only thing you can think of wearing is your "hello kitty" pajamas and your slippers.

what kind of sick fuck

does this?

the subway hoax.

where are they gonna film nature shows if this keeps up?

one of kenya's national parks is being downgraded to a game reserve...i say bollocks to that!

cannonball!

joemca played at scenic last night. it was my first time there and i really liked it. very nice, comfy space and lots of room. the downstairs space is a little cramped--esp the stage--but still functional, with great bar service. anyway, we noticed on the chalkboard outside that it said "david cross dj" or something so we were very excited when david cross showed up at some point and went up to the dj booth. he's got pretty good taste in music.
demetri martin, a pretty funny comedian who's getting a lot of press these days (he also mced the coney island across the narrows shows) was also there. i wanted to say something but instead i just tapped him on the shoulder because he was blocking the doorway.

and why is it that when someone says 'wanna go to buttermilk?' on the way home from the city i say 'yes'?

two suicide bombs in iraq

to make up for not having one yesterday.

10 October 2005

finally, my taxes do something useful

go watch these videos of water balloons popping in zero gravity. go now.

via fark

cary grant fest!

waxy says you can watch "Charade" on the web,

13 is showing "my favorite wife" on sunday!

my mom should be thrilled.

instead of tim mccarver and rick sutcliffe

as my roommate and i spent a great deal of our weekend watching baseball, we spent a great deal of time voicing our dislike of baseball announcers. i love skip and chip caray and don sutton, but i hate all the national guys. so, after muting it and putting on iron & wine, which, yes, is a strange combination, but it some how works on a rainy sunday, we decided that the SAP for playoff games should be just the crowd and no commentary. none. at all. just the crowd. and the crack of the bat.
who's with me?

curbed is doing my work for me

forgotten ny hits fifth ave in the wards 22 & 8.

i am a lazy blogger today

here's curbed to tell you about open house new york. the road to hell paved with the best intentions and all that, i didn't even get to anything in my neighborhood. they should do this shit for more than one weekend.

shameless promotion of others

go see joemca at scenic.

i knew i could count on gawker

to have the right kind of coverage of this story. love it.

anna wintour gets peta-pied.

london looks a little scary

some earthquake news

30,000+ dead. that is so fucking many people. so many.

help on the way

more about aid

today's bomb is for afghanistan

don't forget about kandahar...3 killed.

beautiful view

so my dad just came back from a nerding, er, birding trip to panama, and he sent me this:

it's a spectacled owl and i want one.

rainy day woman

i had been looking forward to this rain-soaked weekend ever since i heard of its impending arrival. i would need no excuse to sit around the house in my pajamas for most of the day and do little more than eat, knit and watch television. for the first time in weeks, i would have time to read the whole sunday times. the braves would be on. i was set for lethargy.

but i would have to earn it. friday brought another birthday party. the husband of the woman who is responsible for some of my more
intense hangovers brought me to the magician for the first time in i don't know how long. partying with the brits is always dangerous work, but i managed to hold myself to a strict "no shots" rule, which made for a much less brutal hangover. for reasons i will never understand, we ventured down to happy ending around 3 am. i do not and will not ever see the appeal of this place. it is ridiculously humid inside and the jew in me couldn't help but be a little freaked out by the showerheads everywhere. still, we stayed until we were forced to slog outside and get some taxi action home.

arriving home at 5 am, i threw open my window as wide as the air conditioner would let me and fell into bed listening to the heavy drops falling on the trees and street outside. bliss.

i awoke around 10 for no apparent reason. immediately the telly went on and i assumed the position on the couch. a friend came over and we dispatched a roommate to get flour and chocolate chips, because we were gonna eat us some chocolate chip cookies. and that we did. along with some annie's mac & cheese with avocado, which, at that moment, was the best food ever. there was just nothing left in me. i couldn't move, could barely talk. i was capable only of aiming my glazed eyeballs toward the flashing light from the tv. but we decided anyway to venture out to see
the squid & the whale, which was playing at our local "home of noah baumbach" movie theatre. NB writes near-perfect dialogue and i'm even venturing to say every actor in that movie, aside from anna paquin who, for no apparent reason, drives me nuts, did a brilliant job. that was really about all the activity i could handle for one day.

sunday was slightly more productive...i started the day with a visit to the gym, and on my way home i noticed while we didn't have our sunday times, the deli downstairs was sporting one of those unmistakable blue bags. i figured maybe my roommate had already got up and gotten ours, so i left it there. but he hadn't. so when i went back out a little later, i went into the deli, which was now open and which no longer boasted a times, and asked if they'd seen it. "no, no", they said. i'm a pretty good detector of bullshit and these rats were lying. i couldn't for the life of me figure out why anyone would steal half the sunday times. they couldn't re-sell it or anything. so i went up to another shop to buy cream, which my deli doesn't have, and to blue apron foods, which has my favorite heart-attack inducing brie. on my way back, i noticed that on the newspaper stand outside, which normally housed only the post, the sun, the daily news and the park slope courier, was a lone, once-folded sunday paper. or, half the sunday paper. i looked right at them though the door and took it back. my cornershop is stealing our newspaper and lying about it. what is this world coming to?

i made tomato basil soup and ate about 1/8th of a pound of brie. then i watched the braves and the astros engage in one of the most exhausting games of baseball ever. which, of course, the braves lost. although my "fuuuuuck" rang out for probably a couple block radius, at least now i don't have to pay attention to it anymore. i don't like any of the teams left. i'll go for the cards, i guess.

and what better way to spend the end of a lazy weekend is there than to order in thai food and watch the office christmas special?


07 October 2005

i really think there should have been some maroon 5 on there

aziz and his roommate bet who could make the worst mixtape. aziz lost. watch the video of him walking around with god awful music.

props to stereogum

from the mouths of babes

Little boy: I am your enemy! I will defeat you! I am your financial advisor!

overheard

ward 22 in the house!

what with all the confusion about neighborhoods these days, i'm recommending we go back to the old-style ward divisions. meaning, slopers, you are now part of the 22nd ward. prospect expressway divides us from the 8th ward. court street divides wards 6 and 10. there are lots of old raggedy maps about it here. oh, what the hell, i'll give you the index. i'm just that nice.

assuming no one blows it up

here's what the ol' subway is up to this week:

F no stoppa at smith/9, carroll & bergen (manhattan-bound)

G no comin'a past hoyt/schermerhorn

N stops at dekalb both ways

R over the bridge both ways

Safety lesson for this week:
Watch the gap.

score one for the les

curbed reports on rezoning in ABC by CB3. let's hope they can hold off the developers for another year or two.

the enemy of my enemy is my friend

ferrer and ognibene throw a lovefest at the Apollo. this is why politics have become all but pointless. no one really talks about anything except how much the other guy/gal sucks.

"I can't imagine why anyone would turn down the opportunity to headline at the Apollo," Democrat Ferrer said

Ognibene threw a softball: "What kind of arrogance does it take for a mayor not to show up at the first mayoral debate?"

Mikey:
"I think what everybody today is going to be focused on is the Yankees," he added.
The Yankees did not play last night.


eveyone's up mayor b's ass because he snubbed the black community by not going to the debate at the apollo. i'm pretty sure he snubbed every single new yorker.

c u l8er G zus

sigh. sigh.

sigh.

the bible. you can now text the bible.

and they've done it in that horrible text-speak. is it soooo hard to spell out all the words? i manage to punctuate and spell mine correctly (unless, of course, i'm drunk).

who does this? what the hell is going on?

and other, older, stupid bible news.

people are f-ing stupid

ok, so we've all been hearing about how some people are somehow able to exist in a world so irrational that they can ignore evolution...here is a bozo who is trying to do it in the grand canyon. a place very clearly carved out over tens of thousands of years. but this dude would have you believe that the grand canyon. wait for it. was made by NOAH'S FLOOD. ahh, logic.

somebody set us up the bomb

i don't know. i'm still getting on the trains...

cheese!!! cheese!

cheese!

baseball!

braves win.

the NYT's hot new destination

Des Moines! The last time I was in DM, we hunted down the only chinese restaurant in town and heard on the radio there that they'd had their first shooting in like five years that night. exciting!

06 October 2005

if only

the onion makes my wish come true...


Citing Slow Summer Box Office, Hollywood Calls It Quits

and my apologies to my telly.

guess whaaatt...

boom!

happy new year, bitches

ok, so tuesday was rosh hashannaahannah and i stayed home. i sort of forgot to go go shull, though. but i'll go and atone for it on yom kippur.

then yesterday i realized i was sick and slept all day. (glorious.)

in bigger news, our bocce team won its first game of the season, which means we are going to be kicking all kinds of ass over the next couple of months.

in more annoying news, los bravos sucked up turner field yesterday afternoon.

03 October 2005

how to be a christmas and easter Jew

i'm going to a friend's for Rosh Hashanah tomorrow night and we're discussing the menu. i was looking through recipes when i discovered this little gem:

BORSCHT

1 qt. ready Borscht

8 oz. sour cream
8 oz. plain yogurt

Strain Borscht.
Mix sour cream and yogurt on medium speed until blended. Add Borscht slowly, blend. Refrigerate.

You'd think a recipe for Borscht might not call for a qt. of "ready made" borscht...rather, it would tell you how to acutally make the shit yourself. guess not...L'shana Tova!

UPDATE:
I made a vat of borsch...it was not that difficult and ended up tasting pretty good. unfortunately i combined about five differenc recipes to get what i made, so i'll never be able to duplicate it. but it seemed to go over well at the dinner. which, like larry david, i left before dessert...sorry!

across the narrows coney island wrap up

it's too much to even think about writing, so here are a few observations from Across the Narrows this weekend:

Rilo Kiley are very good live.

Jenny Lewis is a ham.

Built to Spill are also very good live.

Built to Spill played "
while my guitar gently weeps" very nicely.

Built to Spill do not like the current administration.

Vinnie Jones's physical and spiritual doppelganger is the lead singer of Gang of Four.

Gang of Four do not like microwaves.

Kim Deal can play bass with a cigarette in her hand.

The Pixies will never play "dig for fire".

There was a lot of eighties nostalgia in Coney Island this weekend.

Eighties nostalgia needs to stop asap.

Dragonette wear white suits.

Except for the drummer, who wears a t-shirt that says "Dragonette" on it.

White suits make me dislike you.

Dragonette's music is still pretty catchy.

The Ravonettes were very tired.

The Polyphonic Spree are creepy.

Nothing and no one will convince me otherwise.

The Polyphonic Spree do, however, use a theremin and blow bubbles.

But all the ladies in the group have the same haircut.

Belle & Sebastian are twee and I love every minute of it.

I still know all the words to "Loser".

Beck does, in fact, still play "Loser".

Sometimes right after I ask my friend if he ever plays it.

Beck has a band that can play glasses.

The people like dancing to the Beck.

Beer is not overpriced at Keyspan Park.