in the (far too) well recorded history of blogs, there have certainly been many updates the are...unneccessary. this is one such entry.
i've been casually playing around with php, mostly out of boredom. soon most of the pages on this site (not the blog, though) will be in php instead of html. i'll probably start making the easiest stuff live tonight. i'm more than a little excited, honestly. because i'm more than a little nerdy.
continuing right along this gnarly path, i got rid of the unsightly counter at the bottom of this page for something less...asenine. google analytics. i can't say enough nice things about it. or about you, strangers and friends, who come here. thanks to google analytics i now know that by a very narrow margin, more of you use firefox than use internet explorer. i am so proud of you. i'm beaming.
my friend adam, who is doing a lot more with his life than i am with mine, started a blog this month. he's a good writer and he's in peru doing interesting things so he's got plenty to write about. if you're looking for one more thing to read during the day, consider stopping by.
30 January 2007
24 January 2007
ybor city is tres speedy but they throw such killer parties
statistically speaking, today was the most depressing day of the year. because it was the monday of the most depressing week of the year. there are people who sit at desks and get paid to come up with this kind of thing. depressing, depressing people.
me, i was doing pretty good until i watched 24. and then i played gears of war and got my ass handed to me by foul-mouthed, wretched little children. now i hate myself for liking that godforsaken show, and for sucking at that godforsaken game. but i guess i'm still not depressed.
i saw the hold steady play at northsix last week. i wrote about it today at work, but i figured i'd mention it here too, since they were so god damn fucking amazing and i'm reluctant to use such strong language when my paycheck depends on it. here's a video of them on letterman the week prior. watch it and then believe me when i tell you that they were roughly ten million times better in person.
this weekend i had some pretty good food. there's a malaysian place on grand street (the little italy part, not the chinatown part) called nyonya and they have this dessert called peanut pancake which may or may not be laced with narcotics, because it took me to new and higher places, in a spiritual sense. make sure you get the coconut ice cream on it. i had some goat meat on west 160th street also. and a burrito. a really good burrito.
in february i'm going to dublin for a few days to see if it's really true what they say about the irish and drinking. my motives are purely scholastic, and i'll have a full report to you upon my return.
i tried to quit coffee for a while but today i remembered how much i like coffee. same goes for white castle, actually. damn.
me, i was doing pretty good until i watched 24. and then i played gears of war and got my ass handed to me by foul-mouthed, wretched little children. now i hate myself for liking that godforsaken show, and for sucking at that godforsaken game. but i guess i'm still not depressed.
i saw the hold steady play at northsix last week. i wrote about it today at work, but i figured i'd mention it here too, since they were so god damn fucking amazing and i'm reluctant to use such strong language when my paycheck depends on it. here's a video of them on letterman the week prior. watch it and then believe me when i tell you that they were roughly ten million times better in person.
this weekend i had some pretty good food. there's a malaysian place on grand street (the little italy part, not the chinatown part) called nyonya and they have this dessert called peanut pancake which may or may not be laced with narcotics, because it took me to new and higher places, in a spiritual sense. make sure you get the coconut ice cream on it. i had some goat meat on west 160th street also. and a burrito. a really good burrito.
in february i'm going to dublin for a few days to see if it's really true what they say about the irish and drinking. my motives are purely scholastic, and i'll have a full report to you upon my return.
i tried to quit coffee for a while but today i remembered how much i like coffee. same goes for white castle, actually. damn.
17 January 2007
new york is cold but i like where i'm living
it feels like it's been forever since my last bizarre subway experience, so i guess i've been due for one. today at pacific street a guy got on with a crumpled yellow piece of paper in his hand, all smiles and handshakes, and introduced himself in the brokenest of englishes to me, despite my headphones.
i was understanding maybe one word out of every twenty, and a lot of those were the same few words over and over. he wanted my help translating a ticket he had just been written by transit cops (did you even know they really do that?!) for "reclining" on a crowded n-train. according to him, he just had his feet up, and the cops came over and asked his name and address and handed him a ticket. for fifty dollars.
he laughed it off though. told me how many hours of work at the restaurant it would be to erase it, and proceeded then to talk my ear off for the duration of my ride.
he said i had a nice face, that i would be popular in shanghai, where he was from. but that shanghai would make me miss new york. at this point in my smiling and nodding i think i might have agreed to visit him there.
he also went into a very detailed explanation of why it's important not to get married and at what age it becomes okay and mostly (i think) it came down to money but he kept saying "downstairs" and i don't know what he meant by that but i kinda doubt it's what you're thinking he meant. i really wish i could've understood more.
anyway, it was kinda cool. when i got up to leave he said "see you in shanghai" and i said "see you there" and then that was it.
oh yeah and he was wearing a bike helmet the whole time. no bike though.
my friend laura salierno has some photos up for the next month or so at a bar called punch and judy. i went to a reception there tonight and caught up with some people that i really should call more often. if you're around clinton street (there's music there all through the evening) you should stop by. one of the photos has me in it, which is kinda neat, if you're me. but all of them are really very wonderful.
i was understanding maybe one word out of every twenty, and a lot of those were the same few words over and over. he wanted my help translating a ticket he had just been written by transit cops (did you even know they really do that?!) for "reclining" on a crowded n-train. according to him, he just had his feet up, and the cops came over and asked his name and address and handed him a ticket. for fifty dollars.
he laughed it off though. told me how many hours of work at the restaurant it would be to erase it, and proceeded then to talk my ear off for the duration of my ride.
he said i had a nice face, that i would be popular in shanghai, where he was from. but that shanghai would make me miss new york. at this point in my smiling and nodding i think i might have agreed to visit him there.
he also went into a very detailed explanation of why it's important not to get married and at what age it becomes okay and mostly (i think) it came down to money but he kept saying "downstairs" and i don't know what he meant by that but i kinda doubt it's what you're thinking he meant. i really wish i could've understood more.
anyway, it was kinda cool. when i got up to leave he said "see you in shanghai" and i said "see you there" and then that was it.
oh yeah and he was wearing a bike helmet the whole time. no bike though.
my friend laura salierno has some photos up for the next month or so at a bar called punch and judy. i went to a reception there tonight and caught up with some people that i really should call more often. if you're around clinton street (there's music there all through the evening) you should stop by. one of the photos has me in it, which is kinda neat, if you're me. but all of them are really very wonderful.
10 January 2007
the candy store
one of the main reasons i post less on here these days is that all the things i find myself wanting to write about are better written elsewhere.
there was something that i meant to write about but forgot to, though. when i read yesterday that somebody had died as a result of the same arctic swim i was bragging about, it popped back into my head. if you don't feel like reading the article, he didn't die from being cold or anything. he injured his spinal cord somehow by diving in. it's still a huge tragedy, i only mention that because i don't want my mom to freak out. hi mom.
but reading about something so sad reminded me of something else i saw that day. being that it's winter and coney island is decidedly a summer destination, most of the shops on or around the boardwalk are boarded up. it's a bleak scene, to say the least, when a crowd of over a thousand is gathered on the boardwalk in broad daylight, surrounded by closed shops. but some shops never close (nathan's hot dogs are better than almost everything), and a few seem to make a special effort to open up for coney island's best-attended off-season event.
after the swim, the crowd basically retreats en masse down stillwell avenue, and most seem to stop at nathan's, which is at the corner of stillwell and surf. a little further down surf avenue there is a candy shop. bright colors, candy apples, etc. the kind of candy shop that there probably aren't many left of and that can only still exist in places like coney island. we stopped at nathan's on the way out (even though we had also stopped there on the way in) and walking down surf avenue towards our car, we passed the candy shop.
the shops on either side were closed up, but the candy shop was open, and the owner was just standing in the doorway, looking defeated while throngs of people (including us) walked by with nathan's hot dogs in hand.
anyway. i just got the impression that he had opened the doors specially for the occasion, and not many people appreciated it. and that made me a little sad.
in other news, i wrote about this already for work, but roddy woomble's (he's the singer in idlewild) solo record my secret is my silence blew me away this week. even though it came out months ago. better late than never, right?
oh, and also, i got a big snail to live with roddy and eat algae. his name is spencer and i haven't taken a picture yet. this morning he was all hiding in his shell instead of crawling around and it has me a little worried. please keep him in your thoughts.
there was something that i meant to write about but forgot to, though. when i read yesterday that somebody had died as a result of the same arctic swim i was bragging about, it popped back into my head. if you don't feel like reading the article, he didn't die from being cold or anything. he injured his spinal cord somehow by diving in. it's still a huge tragedy, i only mention that because i don't want my mom to freak out. hi mom.
but reading about something so sad reminded me of something else i saw that day. being that it's winter and coney island is decidedly a summer destination, most of the shops on or around the boardwalk are boarded up. it's a bleak scene, to say the least, when a crowd of over a thousand is gathered on the boardwalk in broad daylight, surrounded by closed shops. but some shops never close (nathan's hot dogs are better than almost everything), and a few seem to make a special effort to open up for coney island's best-attended off-season event.
after the swim, the crowd basically retreats en masse down stillwell avenue, and most seem to stop at nathan's, which is at the corner of stillwell and surf. a little further down surf avenue there is a candy shop. bright colors, candy apples, etc. the kind of candy shop that there probably aren't many left of and that can only still exist in places like coney island. we stopped at nathan's on the way out (even though we had also stopped there on the way in) and walking down surf avenue towards our car, we passed the candy shop.
the shops on either side were closed up, but the candy shop was open, and the owner was just standing in the doorway, looking defeated while throngs of people (including us) walked by with nathan's hot dogs in hand.
anyway. i just got the impression that he had opened the doors specially for the occasion, and not many people appreciated it. and that made me a little sad.
in other news, i wrote about this already for work, but roddy woomble's (he's the singer in idlewild) solo record my secret is my silence blew me away this week. even though it came out months ago. better late than never, right?
oh, and also, i got a big snail to live with roddy and eat algae. his name is spencer and i haven't taken a picture yet. this morning he was all hiding in his shell instead of crawling around and it has me a little worried. please keep him in your thoughts.
01 January 2007
happy new year
happy new year, everybody. last new year's day i wrote some shit and...well now that i look back i realize that it was mostly incoherent. so nevermind.
but you know, january 1 is as good a day as any (some would say better even) to take stock a bit. current status: pretty rad. 2006 was a bit of a roller coaster (i guess they pretty much all are), but right now i really feel like i'm on the right track for some good things to happen to me in 2007*.
to celebrate my reckless optimism, i jumped into the ocean today. it wasn't so bad, since the air was almost 60°, but the water sure was cold. one of my partners in crime had the foresight to bring a waterproof camera, so i'll post pictures on here eventually as evidence, provided i don't look fat or something.
please believe me when i tell you that i will brag about this for months to come. if not years. you'd do best to smile and nod.
i've been listening a lot lately to margot & the nuclear so and so's. you might like them, too.
*impromptu resolution: use less parentheses (they really are a crutch for me).
but you know, january 1 is as good a day as any (some would say better even) to take stock a bit. current status: pretty rad. 2006 was a bit of a roller coaster (i guess they pretty much all are), but right now i really feel like i'm on the right track for some good things to happen to me in 2007*.
to celebrate my reckless optimism, i jumped into the ocean today. it wasn't so bad, since the air was almost 60°, but the water sure was cold. one of my partners in crime had the foresight to bring a waterproof camera, so i'll post pictures on here eventually as evidence, provided i don't look fat or something.
please believe me when i tell you that i will brag about this for months to come. if not years. you'd do best to smile and nod.
i've been listening a lot lately to margot & the nuclear so and so's. you might like them, too.
*impromptu resolution: use less parentheses (they really are a crutch for me).
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