It's been a real long while so here are some post-Christmas bullets

Well, as per usual, I've been a lazy bum when it comes to posting.

I spent two awesome weeks in Florida and have been back in the city for a week now... which means it's time for bullets! Hooray...

* Florida was a blast. I got to see a lot of family and friends and do a lot of catching up... and I got some good D-Rays stuff to bring back to the city.

* Myself, my brother/sister, Lisa and Emacy played the third annual Hangover Cup (our traditional New Year's Day golf tournament.) Sadly, my brother won... because she's been taking lessons! That's so not fair and we're considering officially disqualifying him/her in the future so we'll see what happens with that.

I would have come in second, except I had a Phil Mickelsonesque collapse on the last hole that turned a four into a 9 giving Emacy a one stroke lead over me at the end of the day. I was like 20 feet from the green (it was on a little hill) and for whatever reason it took me like four tries with my wedge to get onto the green. It was fugly and I think Emacy may have peed himself he was laughing so hard.

Lisa came in fourth, despite being tied for the lead after the front nine with like a 63... he shot like a 78 on the back nine, we're all still a little confused...

* I'm officially addicted to "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." I watched copious amounts with Emacy down in Florida and I've been watching it kind of non-stop since.

Here's a few fun clips...

When the gang makes a band and is a little weirded out by Charlie's lyrics:



Sweet Dee's trip to the shoe store:



Some of the fun from when the gang has to coach basketball as community service:



Anywho...

* It was in the 70's and 80's for most of the time while I was there... It was actually like 85 degrees when I flew out of Tampa. New York, however, was in the 40's. My coworker told me that on Thursday it may go below zero here (for the first time here since 1994...)

* I'm also addicted to a weird little MC Frontalot song I heard when I was hanging out with a friend at NYU after I got back...



The same day I heard that song we went to Brooklyn to see this free variety/comedy show which was pretty fun. The funniest part was the last comedian, Baron Vaughn.

Here's a random clip from a different show of his...



* After the show, we wandered over the the Trash Bar, with the free tater tots... which is always awesome.

* The other night I headed over to Revival and learned that science can be fun. One of the regulars taught everyone how to shotgun beer straight from the bottle in seconds. The trick is to stick a straw in with a bend at the end, and to seal your lips around the mouth of the bottle and have the end of the straw sticking out. Then as you chug, the air that goes into the straw and pushes the beer out allowing you to drink the whole bottle in about two or three seconds once you get good. So that made for an interesting evening to say the least. He said he learned it from some homeless drug addict, which tells me it might not be something to make a habit of, hmm...

* So last night I went with my roommate to a fancy night club in midtown near Times Square called Opera. A friend of hers got us on the VIP list so we skipped the line and didn't pay the cover, which was cool. Though we didn't wait in line, we still had to empty the pockets and get full pat down once inside, seriously full. I was thinking the guy owed me at least breakfast or something after he was finished. As for the free cover, the money saved went straight to the drinks though... $11 cocktails plus an automatic $2.50 tip on top = ouch at the end of the night, seriously. The people we met there were cool and I even got to shake my groove thing for a while on the floor.

I didn't spend the whole night on the dance floor though because I didn't want to show up the other dudes in the club and make them jealous, especially when I was doing the Margaret Thatcher a la MC Frontalot.

Oddly enough I didn't bump into a group of girls there like these ones from Sunny...



* Also, it snowed about half a foot yesterday, so that's fun.

I'm sure I missed a lot of things because I'm a bad person, but that should essentially catch things up since I'm so awful about updating.

P.S. Happy New Year!

Radio Ga Ga - Texas style...

So I rarely ever listen to the radio in New York... my iPod is pretty much attached to me at all times and I only ever listen to the radio if I have to drive out to a site in upstate New York or over in Jersey (Jersey I have so far been able to avoid...)

So here in Texas, I'm back to a normal commute by car, 30 minutes each way, and today I drove out to Bridge City (basically where Texas meets Louisiana), which was hit pretty hard.

The trip was about two hours each way... which of course gave me the chance to surf through the radio stations in search of music to listen to on the road. (Commercials aren't acceptable, as my brother probably remembers, whoever was in the passenger seat of the car would get yelled at if commercials were on the radio for more than two seconds... so it's like a pavlovian reaction to turn the dial when commercials come on the radio now...)

With the seemingly limitless selection of songs put out over the years for all the stations to choose from, you'd think I wouldn't hear too many repeats right?

Well, of course, you would be very, very wrong.

Before I get into some specs on the songs from today, I'd like to make an overall observation on the radio so far in my Texas adventure...

Apparently Def Leppard's Hysteria is still treated like a new release, which is pretty awesome.



I mean, the album only has 12 tracks... and I've heard at least seven of them on the radio here (most of the several times) since I got here.

Pour Some Sugar on Me, Love Bites, Armageddon It, Women, Rocket, Animal (Most of Def Leppard's videos are admittedly pretty dumb and or overly simple, but I almost didn't link to the Animal video because it is just so damn stupid, seriously.) and, of course, Hysteria.

What? No love for Run Riot? That's cold.

Actually the seven I've heard repeatedly for the past week or two were all seven of the hit singles released from the album. Yeah, seven hit singles, which is no wonder it sold 12 million copies...

Anywho, back to the today, which I spent a large chunk of in the car flipping through radio stations.

Here are just a few songs that come to mind that came on enough times today that I started keep a count (and no, I'm not including current top 40 songs, because they of course were looped continuously)...

* 3 times - Here I Go Again - Whitesnake... though it's always the pop-radio edited version here without the guitar solo :(
* 3 times - Oh Sherry - Steve Perry
* 3 times - Ironic - Alanis Morissette
* 4 times - Don't You Want Me - Human League
* 4 times - That Nickelback song... though I may have heard two or three songs of theirs and just not known the "difference"...

Other notably random ones include Poison's Unskinny Bop (yes, women are still kind of sort of fighting over him, season after season) and someone sending out a request for Nelly Furtado's Say It Right to an injured high school football player. ...? I'm sure there is some fascinating explanation to that one...

However, overall, the big winner of the day though? I'm sure much the chagrin of my buddy in Philly who says he will forever be beyond tired of this song...

Drum roll...

With a whopping total of seven times! ...

Living on a Prayer!



I feel closer to Tommy and Gina now today than I ever have before. I hope things worked out for them...

And yes, that count was just for today (it's been on plenty of other days too). Don't worry though... the rest of Bon Jovi's library was
well represented throughout today including I'll Be There For You on the way back to my hotel.

I bet if Jon Bon Jovi donated his Texas-related ASCAP earnings to the Ike recovery effort, he could actually make a pretty at least a little bit of an impact. He really is somewhere on the radio here like all day.

Oh yeah... it really only seems appropriate to put a Radio Ga Ga link somwhere in the post, right?

I'm headed to Texas tomorrow, plus some random ish...

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A Real "KFC" - a Kentucky Fried Call to action!

I stumbled upon this today and just about messed myself...

KFC has an ongoing petition online to get a real Col. Sanders stamp!


Then I won't have to affix miniature portraits of him over those dumb Liberty Bells myself when I mail my letters anymore.

The Liberty Bell, I mean come on. Who thought of that one anyway? It's old, busted and definitely did not provide the world with the best fried chicken recipe known to man. Hopefully this petition will help rectify that situation.

So I went and saw a Mets game at Shea Stadium with a buddy this weekend, which was pretty cool. They'll be tearing it down after this season, so I wanted to see the old girl before she gets busted up like the Phillies' potential shutout Sunday. Just because we got served, doesn't mean I won't talk trash. We played the Phillies and indeed got poned, but it was still fun.


The new stadium, Citi Field (nice ring to it, right?), is right next door. You can actually see it on the right of the picture. I guess the name is better than something like "McDonald'" field, or something blatant like that. If you're not reading it, it's not obvious that the name is in reference to Citigroup.

I really wanted to get my picture taken with Mr. Met, this is about as close as I got to meeting him...

I know, it looks like a snapshot from the Zapruder film or something. And yes, in case you're wondering, Mr. Met is armed in this photo and taking aim at fans... with a shirt cannon.

I wonder if he shot a shirt point blank at the guy who wrote this fascinating article about him. We still love you Mr. Met, no matter what your lifestyle choices are.

Also, an old friend from the Oracle is in town and working Fashion Week, which is really cool. We watched the USF-UCF game in Times Square and played catch up, which was a lot of fun.

UCF fans (NSFW - definition 2, hehe...) can't quite figure out that they just can't win and have apparently resorted to threatening our QB... they really are just the pinnacle of class... ridiculous.

The friend who's working Fashion Week is blogging about the experience, so you should check it out... I'll put it in the little blogroll to the right.

Oh yeah, so my brother and his wife got me an iTunes gift card for my birthday, so now whenever I hear some random song anywhere, I can go pick it up and still have money left for the next song that gets stuck in my head... today I used it to buy my favorite Aretha Franklin song ever... "Freeway of Love." I've been told she has a couple others, but this one is where it's at...

Aretha Franklin - Freeway Of Love

Word... that ish takes a little while to load, but believe me it's worth it...

P.S. My library is lame, the outside book drop is locked shut and you have to wait in line to return books. There is no drop off place even inside. That's some white wheat right there. They also have pretty limited hours... which can cause trouble... oh well.

You say Czech Republic and I say Czechoslovakia (which makes me wrong)

So I decided to hit the town after work yesterday... which ended up being a lot of fun, but made work not nearly as much fun today.

Originally I was going to catch a concert at this bar right near where I work.

As I got closer I noticed this big line of people waiting outside the club, and as I got closer, I realized it was like 95 percent girls... which is not a minus to say the least. But, as I got even closer, I realized the club did not have an age limit and they ranged from tweens (some with their humorously unexcited looking fathers) on up to mid-twenties... I figured that probably wouldn't be the best place to go so I wandered to the Village and kept exploring.

Eventually I ended up at a bar with some friends from USF, which was fun. I spent a good part of the evening talking to this girl who was in town from the Czech Republic.

I pulled a John McCain and mistakenly referred to her as being from the now defunct Czechoslovakia. She quickly reminded me that country no longer exists.

Still? I thought for sure by now they'd have hooked up and had some crazy makeup sex by now, oh well...

I also mentioned something about European geography and was way off, and I got called out on that too. I explained to her that we don't need to learn European geography here on this side of the Atlantic and asked her if she knew the geography of our states. Luckily she laughed at most of the crazy jingotastic jokes I made rather than smack me in the face... I probably get away with a lot more than I should sometimes, but I digress...

I wish I had thought to ask her if she was a fan of Eastern Europe's favorite cat and mouse team - Worker and Parasite! ...



The night, which ended up costing a bit, also got me to thinking about finances. I'm definitely doing fine at the moment money-wise, but the more I go out drinking, the more cash I'm hemorrhaging and at some point that might cause some trouble. I really need to reign in the spending, whether it's from drinking, eating out, or just buying things for the apartment - it all keeps adding up.

So I've decided to try something out. Until next weekend (except Wednesday, my birthday!), I'm not going to spend another damn cent. I'm going to prepare every meal at home, not go out drinking, no Chinatown for lunch... heck, not even pick up a 50 cent New York Post on the way to work in the morning. Nothing!

I was totally rocking out to Candy Girl in one of the bars I went to yesterday...



I was just thinking, maybe I'll pick it up for 99 cents on iTunes, what's 99 cents, right? Nope, that's 99 cents too many. I guess my need for a New Edition fix came at a bad time. Oh well, somehow I think I'll survive... even though it really is a fun little ditty...

I'm still debating whether I'll skip doing laundry this Saturday morning too... we'll see.

I'm already planning some thrifty tactics to make this work. Like I'm going to go to get a library card Saturday morning and get a new (free) book to read on my commute instead of the Post. Hopefully it will be better than With a Tangled Skein, a chill just went down my spine thinking of that "book"...

That reminds me, maybe if I can find some sort of abridged children's version with tons of pictures I might pick up Pride and Prejudice. The poll showed that six people had read the book and five had only seen a film version. Either way, in my drunkenness I forgot that the debate was actually over whether all girls had read the book... and the poll didn't specify anything about that, so it was kind of useless I suppose. Oh well.

If I limited it to just women, it probably would have gotten confusing anyway, having to do the math to calculate the results of all those partial votes... I'll just consider that bullet dodged.

Side note: I passed by an epic dominoes match walking home today. These two old guys had a table set up on the sidewalk and they actually had a fairly loud (for dominoes I suppose) crowd watching intently. It was a little odd. It also reminded me that I can't remember the last time I played dominoes and I'm not even sure I even remember how to play.

Open House, Bollywood, knocked up and well-hung bulls?

So... it's not looking like the open house this Saturday will be in too much danger of being overcrowded to say the least. Oh well, I can't say I'm too surprised though.

I went door to door and knocked on the doors on my floor, the floor above me and the floor below me... which people have told me I'm crazy for doing, but oh well. "You can't do that in New York," "It's not a dorm," and similar assertions have come up in conversation, often.

I'm pretty sure most people thought I was trying to sell them something (possibly wacky weed?) and ignored me. The very few people who did answer the door were actually pretty nice, but most said they probably wouldn't be able to come by.

The realtor in the leasing office said she might swing by... but she likely has to at least say that as part of her job description. (That's right, I mentioned it to her when I paid my rent.)

There were a couple of people who seemed pretty cool and sounded like they may swing by... so we'll see.

One person asked if I was the apartment who's always throwing parties on our floor... so that means I'll definitely have to find that apartment at some point.

Either way it will be fun. Lisa will be here, and a few other people I happen to know in the city may swing by, so no matter what we'll have a good time breaking in the apartment...

Much to the chagrin of my future-cop friend, I left a little mini-flier on my floor (which has about six rooms)... he thinks I'm going to get killed. I guess if he's right, I owe him a coke.

Also, I forgot to write in my last post about a debate from this past not-so-sobertastic weekend... How many people have really read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen?

My buddy from Philly, we'll call him, ummm... either Filly or Thanatos (I'll let him decide), says that everybody has read the book. I told him he was crazy, since the book is old and smelly. Plus, I noted that I hadn't read the book, but apparently I don't fall into the "everybody" category since I'm either too cool or I'm an avid non-reader... something like that.

So I decided to punch a hole is in feeble theory through an impromptu drunken text-message survey... I won and now he totally owes me a KFC dinner. Mmmm...

Though, out of curiosity, I'm going to put a poll here and see if more than just one in a million people have actually read the entire book. Remember, watching the movie doesn't count - not even the Bollywood version - which, of course, is a musical in case you didn't know.

That's the only version I've ever seen, not entirely of my own will. Though it is where I found my absolute favorite Bollywood song ever!



This song is actually on my iTunes and frequently appears on my iPod... it's just so fun to sing along with the refrain. I'll have to put learning the dance they do onto my "to-do list."

So also, my friend from Alabama totally got knocked up... but it was by her husband of several years, so it's not too off-the-wall I suppose.

They're starting to get a nursery ready, and I suggested they consider a mural similar to the one they painted in Carla and Turk's nursery on Scrubs...



Anywho, they are both great and I'm totally happy for them. They even started a blog, which I've added to my "blogroll" to the right.

File this one under totally random... apparently the high school I went to spent $8,000 to put a giant, anatomically-correct (read: well hung) bronze bull in front of the school a while ago, and apparently someone just bajanked it.

Sidenote: I've always used the term "bajank" as a synonym for stealing... but according to www.UrbanDictionary.com, its definition is "The act of intercourse with a girl who is loose, and odorous." I guess we all learn something new everyday. I like how for the word "bajanked" to be appropriate, the girl in question needs to have been "odorous." I guess that's to prevent any confusion.

So, back to the bull, they're saying it could have either been pranksters from another school, or scrappers looking to make money by junking the bronze.

Sadly, I'd bet a KFC dinner that ish is headed for a scrapyard, if it's not already at one.

Well, whether folks show up or not, the apartment is really starting to look clean and orderly. I've got most everything put away somewhere... except for about 25 or 30 bottles of booze I still haven't found a home for. Too much booze? Crazy talk! I'll figure somewhere out, even if I have to arrange them on the floor stylishly lined up against the wall of the living room or something. I'll figure it out.

Bullets from a fun weekend...

So some friends were in town this weekend and we relaxed, had a few drinks, behaved ourselves and philosophized about the current state of the civilized world and whatnot.

Well, sort of.

Another way of looking at it might be that we drank all weekend and went all over town from bar to bar causing varying degrees of trouble. We really did go all over the place, so I'll just mention some of the more random things (that I can remember)...

* So bar hopping was a little interesting when we were near NYU... because they tend to card more. Normally presenting ID isn't an issue, but when I recently applied for my New York state driver's license they made me surrender my old license... leaving me without a picture ID.

What I did have, as far as something government-issued that had my birthday on it, was my draft card.

In case you were wondering, about half of the bars on Bleecker Street near NYU checking ID at the entrance let me in using my draft card (draft cards don't have pictures on them in case you didn't know). The other half hate America.

It definitely made for some interesting conversations with the bouncers, most of whom had not registered with the Selective Service System (despite the fact that the law says, with a few exceptions, all males 18-25 must register). Then again, we were right by NYU, so I shouldn't be terribly surprised I guess.

Overall though, it didn't come up too much, since there wasn't too much carding throughout the weekend.

* We went to one bar that had a family of mice living behind the bar... but don't worry, I'm pretty sure they were friendly mice. The bartenders were friendly too, even though I could tell they were a little miffed when they came back from the bathroom to find me heading behind the bar trying to catch the mice. I figure they would make good pets, right?

They were also none too pleased (but still nice) when I pretended to try to get a drink from the Corona lava lamp... come to think of it, they had the patience of saints. Hmmm, if any of us remembers the name of the place, we'll have to go back.

* We went to the home of the best General Tso's chicken in Chinatown for lunch Saturday. Next time I go there, I'll have to get a side order of something we noticed that kind of stuck out on the menu... "duck's blood with yellow chives."

Part of me says it will probably be inedible, like the jellyfish we got there last time, but the other part of me is just fascinated, so we'll see what happens with that...

Sidenote - our fortune cookies were served to us on a bed of sliced oranges... which I had never seen before, there or anywhere else.

* I was exposed for the first time to Concrete TV, which is glorious. Oversimplified, it is this public access show in New York where all kinds of totally random scenes are mashed together into these crazy montages and set to music.

The clips are all over the place, they range from scenes from Barney to people getting run over by cars to porn scenes to newscast snippets to absolutely anything you can imagine under the sun. Hell, I think they had a snippet from JEM and the Holograms.



This is just one random sample... DO NOT WATCH THIS AT THE OFFICE! (along with the random stuff, there's naked folks interspersed...)

An old roommate from USF who lives in the Upper East Side had the DVDs of the show. it was great. He even had one episode that was entirely comprised of essentially just people getting hit by cars and set to a cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic "Crosstown Traffic" and Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" (I get knocked down..., that one).

For some reason, (though admittedly we weren't even close to sober at that point) I couldn't get enough of clips of people being hit by cars. I couldn't stop laughing and was in tears watching it... the other guys might have been a little worried at how much I was laughing at those clips.

I was kind of like when Homer had to watch the Troy McClure video of car crashes at traffic school ("Here's an appealing fellow... in fact, they're a peeling him off the sidewalk.") Everybody else is mortified and Homer is cracking up ... "It's funny cuz I don't know him." Truer words were never spoken.

* I'd be sad if I forgot to mention that Lisa and I resumed our epic Blades of Steel rivalry. My Toronto Maple Leafs, of course, dominated his feeble Montreal Canadiens.

* We did go to the nipple-burger bar near where I work, but nothing crazy happened. The bartender from before wasn't there then. We just had some uber-cheap PBR's and hung out, it was relatively early and thus quite.

* We also had some beers at the microbrewery under the Empire State Building... that was kind of cool. FYI -they have really good cheese fries. We also learned there's a KFC right near the Empire State Building too, which is comforting to know.

* We went to the site of the old CBGB's punk club, which is now an ultra-trendy designer clothes boutique catering to the (with those prices, apparently well-to-do) hipster crowd. The situation is really kind of sad.

Along with the stunningly overpriced shirts, they sold mint condition used records selling for around a $100 a piece. Some looked pretty familiar, since I have copies at my apartment (though admittedly many are not in good enough condition to be considered sold as "collectibles" like theirs). They also sell antique (read: used, and old as crap) stereo receivers, like the 1975 hand-me-down receiver I use. They ranged from $500 to $1,000. The same ones probably sell at Goodwill for $10... but the world is filled with very, very stupid people with too much money... so why not try to get some of it, right? I'm going to try to sell the store my receiver and maybe some records too and see what happens with that.

* I really need to remember to bring my camera everywhere with me. Today's subway ride home was interesting, to say the least. Toward the end of the ride, a high school drumline and group of dancerettes got on the train... which isn't too strange... unless they're all dressed in hospital-themed costumes. The musicians were all wearing scrubs, and the dancers were all wearing matching naughty-nurse outfits (maybe it was good I didn't bring my camera then... since they were all teens...). The teacher/band director was wearing a white lab coat and stethoscope.

One stop away from them getting off, they just randomly decided to all start drumming and salsa dancing on the train... it was incredibly strange - and loud.

There was also a homeless guy on my train for a while begging for money... which is also not too unusual... but he decided to keep things interesting. He basically approached guys individually and would half whisper "Hey, you look like you've got a big dick," and then he would present his change cup. (I assume it was an attempt to flatter some money out of riders. I know I was flattered... but not flattered enough.

I assume either he had some serious issues in the head or that he was totally faking it... sad either way I suppose.

Besides, I had already exhausted my money-for-strangers-on-the-train budget for the day by giving a dollar to an a cappella group that did a really fun version of "Stand by Me" on the 6 train earlier.

The 6 train is on the East side... so the East side apparently gets performances of golden oldies while my train on the West side gets homeless people commenting on my girth... I guess that's the difference between the East and West sides.

Well, I guess that's all I can think of off the top of my head... it's bedtime anyway... we didn't go to bed terribly early these past couple of nights to say the least.