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!

I had fun this weekend, but it looks like I missed out on some Central Park fun...

So I had originally planned to go to Central Park a couple times this weekend to jog and explore, but instead I got lazy and mostly drank the weekend away... which was tons of fun, but apparently I missed topless day at Central Park! (NSFW)

I really did have plans to spend most of the weekend exploring the park and getting familiar with it... oh well. Win some, lose some I guess. It would have been the perfect excuse to be gross and jog topless too. Maybe it's best that I didn't end up at topless day... as things like that have ended poorly in the past.

As has become normal when I've been lazy and not posting too often, I'll do bullets...

* Friday night I went barhopping around Columbia, which is in the Upper West Side (just not nearly as "way upper" as where I am. It was interesting, and I swear the couple next to me at the first bar was a professor and a student. It was an old WASPy looking dude and a 19-year-old looking Asian girl. That was totally a "Law and Order: SVU" episode waiting to happen.

* Saturday was the Upper East Side with MM. We went to this piano bar where we ran into an uber-celebrity! He's so huge... I didn't even know who he was. That's a whole new strata of celebritude. It was Doug Wilson! Yeah, THE Doug Wilson.

Apparently he's on "Trading Spaces" on TLC.

I would have had no idea who he was, except another guy at the bar excitedly asked me "Is that Doug Wilson from 'Trading Spaces' over there!"

I think I said something to the effect of "I have no idea, but I bet he knows, let me ask..."

He was a friendly guy, I think he was a regular there.

* Another bar we went to was kind of interesting... as soon as I walked in the guy who had been playing the bongo drum grabbed me and sat me down at the bongo and said "play." Play I did, just some sort of random beat that hopefully had something to do with the beat (though most likely not... the night was well underway at that point).

I must have been really loud though, because my fingers are like bruised... weird. They also had a hula-hoop competition... I did not win. I know, you're shocked.

I chatted up the owners for a bit, asking them where they recommend in Chinatown... turns out they were from Taiwan and loathe Chinatown - oops. Again, win some, lose some, right?

* Then we went to a new bar and watched the men's basketball gold medal match... while closer than it should have been, we still dominated. The only takeaway from the game is that Pao Gasol is a complete beeyatch. Word.

* I really should start carrying my camera around... but I've said that before. This weekend I heard "Beat It" blaring at the subway station and a big crowd had gathered, so I check it out and sure enough there's midget dressed up in full MJ garb, with the white glove and everything moonwalking around the station.


It was basically the same as this clip, except a midget in that outfit, and fewer people, and just a boombox, and no spotlights or special effects, and it probably smelled worse, and... well, the only things that were the same were the outfit and the creepy factor.
* The other strange sight was a man walking near Chinatown around lunchtime today wearing a sandwich sign covered in too many words to possibly make any sense, like "Bloomberg," "school," "Child-torture" and about thirty other random words. He kept hitting a cowbell and chanting "Arrest Bloomberg. Arrest Bloomberg." That's the mayor, Michael Bloomberg in case you're wondering. I bet the weirdo would be none too pleased if Bloomie successfully beat the city's term limits and got re-elected.

I know, I'm a slacker... a few random things from the past week...

Well, I'm aware that I've been a total slacker lately, but I've been like and alcoholic hair product this whole past week. Get hammered, recover from hangover, repeat. Unfortunately, keeping up that kind of schedule doesn't leave much time for blogging.

Since it's been a while I'll just throw out some random things from the past week or so, which included Thanatos coming up this weekend and us hanging out with another roommate of ours from USF, who I'll just call MM. He lives in the Upper East Side now.

* During the week, I went out for some serious boozing with MM. The few random things I remember... doing some sort of street dancing/break dancing with these dudes outside of a bar... somewhere (I have no idea what part of town that was in) and grabbing drinks at Beauty Bar. They had a manicurist on staff and had a deal where a manicure was $10 and it comes with a free martini.

* I was introduced to Country Club malt liquor this weekend, which was fun. MM and I picked up a couple of 40's (still always a novelty since in Florida you can't get anything bigger than a "32," which is lame).

I'm not going to lie and say it was delicious, heck - when I opened the bottle it smelled like it farted, but it did provide us with endless entertainment in many ways.

Someone made a MySpace page for the malt liquor and it's pretty goofy.

Who I'd like to meet:
I'd like to meet "real" drinkers. The kind of person who likes to go to the store and pick up a ice cold and frosty Country Club 40oz. and drink it right in the parking lot. That's right, you don't have time to wait until you get home.

Or "his" TV Interests:

Television I remember the episode of Sesame Street where Burt came home after a long day and went right to the fridge. Well, guess what? Yup, Ernie had drank up all of Burts 40oz and was face down on the carpet. Needless to say, Burt beat the shit outta Ernie that day. I think the letter of the day was P....for Pain.

Hopefully Country Club malt liquor will accept my friend request, unlike Sue Bird. That hurt deep, but somehow I think I'll pull through.

* Besides, there are bigger things to worry about in this city, like C.H.U.D., Cannabalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.

We spent a lot of time underground, both on and off trains, so we had to be extra cautious this weekend due to the constant threat of C.H.U.D.



* Thanatos and I stumbled on the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market, which was pretty cool. They had all kinds of weird things for sale, ranging from records to those old-timey two-piece telephones to a 1990 Batcopter toy complete with a picture of Michael Keaton on the box.

I was able to behave myself and left with just one thing, the Godfather soundtrack on record. There's some quality music in that movie, like the "Godfather Waltz" -



* We totally set back my health efforts by about two or three months at least. Along with copious amounts of booze and other random food, including of course the malt liquor, we had Hooters, KFC and White Castle. Those are not places known for their healthy options.

*Oh yeah, I successfully got my transit subsidy worked out... I just had to get turned away from a bunch of seemingly legit places first.

* Also, thanks for all the birthday wishes and such!

Not-so-open house and some fun museums...

So... anyone want to guess how many neighbors came to the open house?

I'll give you a hint... zero. Yes, zero, which is kind of weak, but what are you going to do?

Lisa and I had a blast anyway. Also, an old friend from high school who is going to Columbia now came by and we basically all just hang out and drank all night... it was tons of fun.

Some highlights from the evening include:

* repairing the Atari and rocking some insane Warlords and Combat action
* calling my friend in Colorado and asking him to pretend he was Meatloaf on speaker phone to help me win some sort of bet... he was pretty darned confused
* Watched Captain EO, of course (Part 1 on YouTube, Part 2 on YouTube)
* Rocked to the soundtracks from both Dirty Dancing and Footloose

Those are just a few of the random highlights from the well-behaved evening that lacked debauchery of all kinds. I swear it.

After waking up Sunday, none to early I assure you, Lisa and I walked to The Cloisters which is right near my apartment.

Put simply, it is a museum focused on medieval art... but the twist is that the museum itself is built from parts of monasteries torn down in France (and I think one in Austria too). Yup, J.D. Rockefeller Jr. was just plain rich enough that in the '30s he was able to afford to tear down precious history in France, ship it to Manhattan, harvest his favorite parts and have his own monastery built.

It gave me a special sense of pride to know that the museum I was enjoying in my neighborhood was built at the expense of history elsewhere.

Also, many of the sculptures and statues are missing arms and forearms, like the "Figure of a King" below. All I could think of when I saw each one was "they could rectify the situation with some chainsaws, a la Ash in Army of Darkness. Word?...


"Say hello to the twenty-first century!"

I bet if that king had chainsaws for arms, nobody would give him crap for being a cheapskate and bringing Myrrh anymore... nobody would mess with him at all.

Maybe they could put him at the entrance of the museum to scare people into donating more money on the way in. The admission is a "suggested" donation of $20... but thats of course suggested, right? As we were paying, a guy tried to walk in without a donation and he was accosted by the guards who curtly explained that he had better pay some sort of donation or go back from whence he came.

So after the Cloisters, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they're doing this crazy special exhibition - Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy. It was pretty strange to say the least. They took classic superheroes, like Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, etc... and had crazy designers make outfits "inspired" by each hero. You know, the kind of designer clothes that nobody could ever possibly wear... at least not since the '80s.

This stuff was just off the wall... but it was vaguely entertaining and pretty funny to stroll through the exhibit. Plus, they did have some original costumes on display too, like a Batman costume from The Dark Knight and a Spider-Man costume from the recent movies.

They didn't allow pictures at all (the guards seemed angry to be there), so these are taken from around the Internet.

Spidey's outfits were some of the less ridiculous of the bunch.

These are a couple of the outfits "inspired" by Wonder Woman's costume (the Lynda Carter one from the '70s). In case you were wondering, yes - those are indeed Coke cans on tops of the heads. I actually burst out laughing when I saw these ones. I shouldn't be allowed in some museums.

Iron Man was another who got the fashion treatment. I swear, apparently all of these outfits were worn by models on the runway at some point... weird.

Imagine wearing this Batman-inspired gem to a job interview... or maybe the airport?...

Who needs hands anyway, right?

This Hulk-inspired mess would turn some heads...

Apparently Hulk symbolizes masculinity in its purest form, so the designer figured he would add a big protruding penis to the outfit. I might try this one on a casual Friday at the office.
If you follow this link and look around, you can actually click on the comic book covers and look at a whole lot more of the crazy outfits.

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.

One week down... one very awesome week down...

Sorry all, I've been crazy busy with the new job, the new city, looking for a new apartment and all the other fun things that come along with government move... so I've kind of been slacking on updating.

So here is kind of an update on some of the things that have happened so far during my first week in the big city. I ...

... happened to see James Earl Jones as he was leaving a show he's in

... found an all Scottish bar, St. Andrews Pub, with all the Scotch varieties I could ever want to try, and yes they all have thick Scottish accents and wear kilts

... found my new favorite bar in Hell's Kitchen, where I'll be able to watch any Devil Rays game I want. It is where I watched the Rays beat the Marlins which was followed by the next thing...

... Got drunk and spent all night singing karaoke with a bus-load of Australian tourists at said Hell's Kitchen bar (more on that below)

... got a BlackBerry at work

... accidentally let my BlackBerry start ringing loudly while watching my boss get interviewed by a local news station. I figure if I set the expectations low enough, then I'll only look stellar in the future, right? That's what I'm telling myself.

... caught a patrol boat across the Hudson River to a media event off the shore in Hoboken, N.J. (this trip provided some of the most spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline from the water)

... accidentally almost lost my new BlackBerry when it came off my belt when I was negotiating my way through some exposed steel cables on a floating barge on the waters just off Hoboken, N.J.

... was teased by a Jersey dock worker about wasteful federal government spending

... caught myself, even though it makes perfect sense, laughing to myself about that fact that most of the people I came across in New Jersey had thick New Jersey accents

... stumbled upon a free concert in Bryant Park. It turns out it was a Pride event, because it's that time of year in the City... I'm sure someone will have fun with that one in the comments

... had a couple beers with a friend from college at McSorley's Old Ale House, the oldest Irish Pub in New York City, or something to that effect. The reason we each had a couple, is because they don't serve beer one at a time, only two at a time. We also had their gourmet cheese and crackers where they give you a sleeve of crackers straight out of the box and some sliced cheese and onions.

... have essentially found an apartment, and am just waiting for the paperwork to get through (more on that below)

... in my head I mistook, on two separate occasions, girls standing alone dressed to the nines and caked in make-up in SoHo for prostitutes when they were standing on the corner looking around desperately and showing some leg. They were both, very unsuccessfully, trying to hail cabs. Don't worry, I didn't try to solicit services.

... saw what I'm pretty sure was a hobo soil himself (not a number one either folks) at a subway exit near Times Square.

... accidentally used a business entrance to Three World Trade Center as a thru-way on the way to the harbor, which I think they frown upon

... went to a Chevy's in the Financial District where the LED ticker wasn't sports scores, but rather stock prices. I got a kick out of that. Campbell's Soup was down a bit... but nothing compared to Wac-HO-via's crazy tailspin as of late.

... have sort of gotten the gist of how to get to and from Chinatown from the office (a crucial trade passage to be familiar with for lunch)

... have been to Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey

... have started getting used to the subway system and have been on the A,C,E,B,D,R,4,5 and 6 lines.

... while in the R line, went through an abandoned subway station, that looks like it would be a lot of fun to check out... Lisa, are you reading this?

These are just a small sampling of the interesting things that have happened so far in just one week in the city. It has been an exhausting week, but it has also been an amazing week. I'm loving the job, loving the energy of the city and loving the unpredictability. Seriously, nobody knows what's going to happen next and it's great to just be a part of things.

They come from a land down under...

So I had a crazy fun night at my new favorite bar in Hell's Kitchen. I was watching the Devil Rays vs. Marlins (Rays won) when as the game was coming to a close, I notice the other side of the bar is filling up rapidly.

I wander over and start talking to these two girls, when one of their boyfriends comes up and promptly introduces himself. We then all hung out drinking together until one of the bartenders turns on the karaoke machine.

Uh oh. This night was not ending anytime soon, especially since one of the Aussies offered me beers for songs, and I was already drunk enough to sing anyway.

The two I remember singing were Sweet Caroline and Come on Eileen.

Can anyone guess what song got the biggest rise out of the crowd? It was totally Men at Work's classic "I come from a land down under."

As soon as the little steel drum intro came on the speakers, they went absolutely nuts. It was hilarious. It was like something out of some ridiculous comedy.

I guess it sort of made sense? Was that song maybe like their country's 15 minutes of fame? Koalas, kangaroos, Fosters, ex-cons and Men at Work... that's Australia in a nutshell, right? and dingoes I suppose... the mortal enemy of the Koala, as Busch Gardens puts it.

I asked one of them if he plundered and liked vegemite sandwiches and he just looked at me like I was from Mars. I think he was too drunk to get it... or perhaps I was so drunk I didn't make sense.

The important thing of the night was that I didn't chunder, which would have been bad.

...

So I picked an apartment. It's in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. It's right across the street from an express subway stop and from Fort Tryon Park. It's right on the same line as everything that matters, work, the Village/NYU, Penn Station, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Times Square. It's pretty spacious too, so guests won't be cramped when they decided to get their butts up and visit!

So I'm pretty excited and can't wait for all the paperwork to come through and to be able to move in...

So that is kind of a real down and dirty update on things. Maybe once things settle down I'll be a little more regular in posting.

For now though, it's one amazing week down and hopefully many, many more amazing weeks to go!