Heck. Yes.
posted by robotpolisher 4:03 PM :: (2) comments

Twitter. Are any of you on it?  Is it vastly more interesting once you have more than 4 contacts on there?  Do I really need one more thing trying to get my attention? 

I suspect the answer to all of these may be no.

But here's my twitter style update: Work's intense.  But... interesting.  Many interesting things and trips have happened that have gone unblogged.  I'm off tomorrow to Mass for the weekend.

Perhaps I'll blog about that.

Hm.. that's more than 140 characters I think.

posted by robotpolisher 1:12 AM :: (0) comments

It's an exciting milestone, but looking back at the last 4 years of US history, I'm starting to think that maybe I'm a jinx...  Hm...

Either way, I'll make sure to have a burger or something equally domestic for lunch today. Like a Bud.

posted by robotpolisher 10:20 AM :: (1) comments

Last night before my new job (more on which soon, I promise...) Jessie and I went to go see Junior Senior at the Highline Ballroom. Highline Ballrom is kind of a mixed bag (nice big stage and good lighting, two bars... all that's good stuff. 7 bucks for a Bud though? And a bathroom attendant guy? Er, I dunno.)

But onto the most important part: Jessie and I saw Junior Senior with some other folks at Mercury Lounge 2 years ago and we just blown away. You can tell that a typical New York audience is really fired up if they start maybe swaying a little or start nodding their heads extra enthusiastically. But then every once in a while you get a show like this:



That's more like it.
posted by robotpolisher 11:00 PM :: (1) comments

Remember that epochal event I mentioned and then didn't elaborate on?  Today's my last day at the job I've been at for nearly 7 years.  Last time I had a last day at a job it was election day 2000.  We all know how that night ended up.  I think tonight will be better.

Either way, big stuff is afoot and I will get with the blogging about it forthwith. In theory. New job starts next tuesday. Eep! In the meanwhile I've got that excited giddy feeling you got when you were a kid and you were running off the high jump at full speed.  Kinda scared crapless but mostly yelling "wheee!"  Now I've just got 800 loose ends to tie up before I leave tonight so no more writing now. But more details soon!

posted by robotpolisher 5:35 PM :: (2) comments

1. Spent an awesome weekend with a large batch of friends in a gorgeous house up in the wonderful Catskills swimming at a beautiful swimming hole and playing wonderful games of kubb and BBQing surprisingly tasty food.  It appears I may have picked up some kind of tick-borne disease that forces me to overuse adjectives. Hm... At any rate it was really amazingly nice to be out of the city for a weekend.  Just plain did my soul good.  And the stars, man. Good god the stars.
2. Had to head out into pouring sheets of rain yesterday morning to move Karu (our adopted car for the summer) and then head to work. I ran like hell to the bodega around the corner to get an umbrella (as we were fresh out) and arrived soaking.  So I ask for an umbrella and the guy behind the counter says they're fresh out.  Nuts.  Seriously, it's ark-building weather outside. I start looking around and pick up a copy of the Post to use as a temporary umbrella.  It's got to be good for something right?
   
   In the meanwhile the counter guy's been looking around the store and he's on the phone.  He comes back to the register and says "Yeah sorry I tried looking to see if we had any others and called the owners to see if we had any more hiding anywhere. But hey, I mean, do you just want to borrow mine?" He asks, producing a small umbrella from under the counter.  I'm just kind of in shock.  "Wow, um, thanks!" I stammered back. "I live right around the corner, I'll bring it back later?" "Sure! No problem." He says.  And like that, I'm off for a rainy day, well protected.
   
   I dunno, maybe I've just been in New York too long, but I'm always kind of just astonished when someone who's basically a stranger does something totally unnecessarily friendly and helpful, even if it's just with something like a $3 umbrella.  I went back this morning and thanked him profusely and gave him his umbrella back.  He looked kind of surprised to see me but thanked me for bringing it back and pointed to the new stock of Chinese umbrellas. "Next time, we got you covered.".
3. Twisted Mister won the World Series of Pop Culture, which does my heart good 'cause hey man, NYU pride, right?  But seriously, I have absofuckinglutely no idea what I would do at that age with $83,333.333333333333333333.  Probably something really stupid.
4. Today promises to be an interesting, possibly epochal kinda day.  Of that I can say no more.  But yoikes.
   

posted by robotpolisher 11:47 AM :: (3) comments

It's summer in New York and there's a million better things to be doing than sitting inside watching TV. I've even made a pretty conscious decision of late to avoid watching just "whatever's on" in favor of ya know, just reading a book or anything else.

That said, I'm not ashamed to admit that I think I could watch 24 hours straight of the World Series of Pop Culture no problem. Okay maybe I'm a little ashamed.
posted by robotpolisher 8:32 AM :: (1) comments

This weekend I took in two things which were both intended to fall under the banner of "spectacle".

One was a Friday night viewing of the Transformers movie. I have a hard time deciding whether my standards were too high or too low going in. Honestly I'm still split on the whole thing. On the one hand it had BIG. FUCKING. ROBOTS. Smacking each other around, firing guns, crushing buildings, blowing up busses and (hilarilously) flicking off humans like they were fleas. On the other hand, the second John Turturo's character got copiously peed on by a gigantic CGI robot you kind of had think to yourself that boy, there's a reason Michael Bay doesn't direct comedies. Oddly enough some of the, let's say, "actingy" bits in this movie were actually quite good! Funny, a little affecting... ya know, better than expected. And then you have the star of Barton Fink being peed on by a giant CGI robot.

also, I couldn't stop thinking of this Perry Bible Fellowship comic. My final rating of this movie on a scale of 1-10: It's summer.

Then on Saturday on a whim I decided to see if I could get into the Boredoms 77 Drummer musical piece that they were playing in a park basically under the Brooklyn bridge. Because it was 7/7/07. and the # 7 is very important. apparently.

I got down there about 4:30 and the line stretched far enough that from the front it still took about 10 minutes at a brisk pace to get to the end. Apparently the park had a capacity of 4000 and I would estimate based on how many people didn't get in that at least twice that showed up. Actually I would guess that of the people who were standing in line, maybe 15% of them had ever heard a song by the Boredoms. I'm honestly in the other 85%. But then, New York loves a spectacle and a 77 minute long piece with 77 drummers? come on now!

As it was, I stood in line with Lukasz and another guy I know from Taiko for a good long while before we were basically informed to give up. On the other hand we were told, it was going to be "fucking loud" so if we could find ourselves a comfy grassy spot, we would certainly be able to HEAR the show. So off we went over a small fence out onto a breakwater of big angular boulders. Across a tiny bay, there were a set of fences, some trees and on the other side was where the show was actually taking place. So we set up shop, got ourselves some beers and settled in. And honestly I think we lucked out! Sure we didn't get to see the whole coiled snake spectacle up front for ourselves. But instead we got to sit right by the water watching the sun set, drinking beers, enjoying the company of our friends and listening the music wash out across the water towards us. It was really kind of magical in its own way having nothing to do with the spectacle of the event and everything to do with just a bunch of people getting together just to be and relax and take something in.

And yes, I accept that all of that sounds terribly hippie and frutiy, but what can I tell you, it was that kind of afternoon. More than anything, I realized that although I live surrounded by water and streams and islands, I find myself down at the water amazingly infrequently. And even more than that, as you're sitting around chatting with a bunch of complete strangers at some hugely attended manifestation of weird art-rock with the sun setting behind almost century-old skyscrapers on a random Saturday, it's hard not to say that we don't live in the best city on the planet.

I'm just saying.

Also, it has not yet been destroyed by giant robots.
posted by robotpolisher 1:04 AM :: (1) comments

Looks like the whole Wiimbledon tournament has enough press that I couldn't even managed to register.  There were three open windows to register and I tried on on wednesday one whole minute after registration opened but apparently that was one whole minute too late.

Balls.

I was actually really excited about the whole thing, even though i guess there was a pretty good chance I'd get creamed in the first round by some pasty kid just crawling out of their basement after a months long Wii Tennis binge.  Since you're supposed to play under a pseudonym, I was even going to be playing in homage to a childhood tennis icon as Mats Wiilander.

Bah.

So now I guess I can go on Saturday and watch other folks play (or hope that perhaps I'll get one of the walk-in slots) but who knows, maybe I'd just sit around feeling jealous that I couldn't get in there and kick ass.  Either way: bummer.  Good thing the rest of the weekend is shaping up to be packed with really fun  things, not the least of which is Midsommar in the park tomorrow.

posted by robotpolisher 2:48 PM :: (1) comments

Hello my name is totally sweet set of mounted horns martin bought at a stoop sale this morning.

posted by robotpolisher 5:03 PM :: (1) comments

Wiimbledon: Brooklyn's first Wii tennis tournament. Sure, sounds a little goofy, and who knows if the whole thing will actually end up happening, but give 'em credit for a catchy pun at least. Looks like it's time time to get training. Maybe I can convince heatha and mike to come up to Brookland and show off their skills.
posted by robotpolisher 10:50 PM :: (1) comments

Warioware. 'cause i decided that damn if don't just have too much disposible income! i mean my wii might get lonely, right?

posted by robotpolisher 8:19 PM :: (2) comments

Up the Empire in Hollywood. Just got back from spending 4 days out in
California with these goofy bastards playing shows, driving long
stretches, discussing anatomical functions and discussing anatomical
functions while driving long stretches. Good times, good times.

Being back at work is proving amazingly painful.

posted by robotpolisher 4:35 PM :: (0) comments

last night's show was a crap ton of fun and once again i've gotten to see a city almost entirely from the confines of a show venue... spent all of today driving to LA and with an hour left, evryone's starting to go slightly insane. but hey, it's a social, memorable kind of insane! Man I've missed touring...
posted by Robotpolisher 6:45 PM :: (0) comments

California all the way...

Packing up for a four day trip to go play the rock with Up the Empire. Kind of awesome.

posted by robotpolisher 1:12 AM :: (0) comments