Which is the Pretzel Fork?

Cable TV ruins everything

2007-03-05T15:59:00.000-05:00

Glove #10

2007-02-07T05:09:00.000-05:00

35th St and Astoria Blvd., Astoria
January 27, 2007

This is genius

2007-02-05T15:32:00.000-05:00

More gloves

2007-01-26T01:24:00.000-05:00

30th Ave. and 43rd St., Astoria
January 13, 2007

30th Ave. and 49th St., Astoria
January 13, 2007

30th Ave. and Hobart St., Woodside
January 13, 2007

Astoria Blvd. and 31st St, Astoria
January 13, 2007

Astoria Blvd. and 32nd St., Astoria
January 13, 2007

Astoria Blvd. and 35th St., Astoria
January 13, 2007

36th St. and 28th Ave., Astoria
January 13, 2007

37th St. and 30th Ave., Astoria
January 13, 2007

Do they get Nick at Nite in the White House?

2007-01-23T16:40:00.000-05:00

Lost Glove #1

2007-01-02T08:04:00.000-05:00

30th Ave & Steinway, Astoria
January 1, 2007

The early bird gets the shaft

2006-12-22T03:07:00.000-05:00

Cliche writers are stupid. Early to bed and early to rise in fact makes a man just as sick, just as broke, and subject to a lot of daytime TV.

This past Monday I got up early to run some errands. Simple stuff. Just making a deposit at the bank and picking up a package at the post office. Nothing major.

So at 9am I went to the bank, which is all of 137 feet from my apartment. Now this is the bank where when I once had to wait 4 minutes to be served the teller apologized for the wait. I've never been more than third in line, but this morning, there were at least 15 people in a line that reached out to the ATM vestibule. I bailed.

The post office was worse, because I got to see the early morning damage. The line which usually snakes and doubles back on itself had tripled back on itself out the door and back in to the post office. And the really annoying part was that by the time I got my package, the line had dwindled back to a normal line.

And when I went back to the bank, no one was in line. I filled out the deposit slip and moved directly to the open teller.

I should have learned my lesson from before always to sleep in.

Ew.

2006-11-30T13:34:00.000-05:00

My back finally drained today. It was by far, the grossest thing I've ever experienced. Take it from someone whose favorite childhood memory is sliding a cow's heart back and forth across a blood-slick table with my brother. And who has been in the same room as someone cooking menudo.

It's a good thing in the long run, as I can already start to turn my head without inciting huge amounts of pain, and I think I may be able to sleep on my back next week, but I don't think I have a biohazard waste bag large enough to carry away all the saturated gauze.

If I had really been thinking, I'd have hired myself out to makeup artists so they could plan their next truly horrifying special effects.

Just when I thought it was safe to get out of bed

2006-11-26T16:11:00.000-05:00

My back exploded. Again. More doctors. More drugs. More pus and blood to drain...

And now my main camera won't turn on. Whose karma is trying to kill me?

I've never been so happy...

2006-11-18T11:03:00.000-05:00

...to eat a sausage, egg, and cheese croissant from Dunkin' Donuts. Solid food is awesome, and 7 days with a throat too swollen to swallow without excruciating pain is no fun. No fun at all. Sipping lukewarm tea just doesn't have the same filling effect as eating congealed, salty grease products.

Ugh

2006-11-02T01:41:00.000-05:00

Out of Gatorade and seltzer. Still cold though covered in too many layers to count. Have to pee all the time but never want to get out of bed. Running low on soup, out of green bean casserole, and too far from chocolate chip pumpkin cookies. Hate taking drugs, even for fevers. Dumb.

Any chance My Blue Heaven will make me feel better enough to work in the morning? (Good thing working in the morning starts in the afternoon.)

Irony, too late

2006-10-29T04:32:00.000-05:00

This summer I was almost late to a movie because the traffic light outside the theater was malfunctioning, and I called 311 to report it. My friends made fun of me because we had walked to the theater--I don't even have a car--so the fact that the light was out of order didn't affect me.

But today the real irony of the situation was pointed out. The movie we were going to see was A Clockwork Orange, the best pro-anti-social behavior movie ever made. And I almost missed it for my civic duty...

Be careful, people!

2006-10-29T04:28:00.000-05:00

Jeanine Pirro, in an ad for her campaign for NY Attorney General, makes a subtle faux pas, which I really hope is an unintentional oversight.

http://www.jeaninepirro.com/GalleryPopupVideo.aspx?i=003_jp.wmv

In it, she says she has "protected women from abuse, children from pedophiles, and gays from hate crimes," but it's far too easy to hear that she has protected children from pedophiles and gays...

A moral dillema

2006-10-29T04:00:00.000-05:00

This is an honest question that no one has ever been able to answer to me, and I only ask it because I'm really curious about veganism.

We all know that honey is not vegan. Honey production requires the exploitation of bees, which removes it from the vegan diet. Agreed.

But what about all the fruits and vegetables that are pollinated by bees and other--particularly captive--animals? Are those foods no longer vegan as well?

Are foods pollinated by commercial bees vegan? How about wild bees? How do vegan people know the difference?

The British Vegan Society defines veganism as:

"A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment."

The thing is, there are commercial beekeepers, who rent out their hives specifically for the purpose of pollinating farms. These bees are exploited just like any other commercial, captive animal. The weak and unproductive are killed. The queens are replaced periodically and by human devices. Hives are moved, split, and otherwise manipulated in ways that the bees would never naturally choose to do.

Sheep are not hurt by shearing for wool, but they are exploited nonetheless, and as such, wool is not considered vegan. Why not foods pollinated by captive animals?

Jo Stepaniak of Grassroots Veganism (http://www.vegsource.com/jo/qa/qahoney.htm) writes, "Even though humans inadvertently benefit, the bees do not pollinate plants in order to serve human needs; it is simply a secondary aspect of their nectar collecting," but based on the practices of commercial beekeepers, bees are forced specifically to serve human needs. So why is it okay for Vegans to abuse these animals?

Why can't they just smell like shampoo?

2006-10-16T20:27:00.000-04:00

For a while I had been using a relatively expensive brand of shampoo, and while the price per bottle is high, it is very thick, and two bottles cleansed my head for about a year and a half.

Now I'm using a shampoo that cost about half as much, but my early projections indicate that it will last less than 3 months. So despite it being cheaper, it is in the long run, more expensive. I guess I'm paying for all the glitzy commercials that influenced me to buy it in the first place.

But the strange thing is that at the moment of applying shampoo to hair, they both emit odd scents that resemble in no way cleanliness. The less expensive one smells of pot smoke, and the more expensive one smells a bit like vomit.

The smells disapate withing seconds, but they are distinct enough to completely alter my showering experience. It's hard to sing Wilson Philips songs with the scent of vomit in the steamy air.

I may have been a very different person...

2006-10-13T01:00:00.000-04:00

The war on blowingpeopleupism

2006-10-09T20:44:00.000-04:00

Last week Eric and I were walking around midtown wasting some time before he had to go back to work, and in our wonderings, we came across a section of Lexington Ave that had been closed off with police line. A couple of cops and a few dozen civilians milled around, peering down the empty street, looking for signs of ensuing tragedy. The most often overheard phrase was "suspicious package".

I'm a simple person, and I think in simple terms. This is the strongest evidence I can see that terrorists are winning. We are afraid. We have been inflicted with terror. We fear forgotten suitcases. We fear cameras. We fear powdered donuts.

For more than a year, bags and packages have been subject to random search on NYC subways. Last time I checked, the US Constitution said that my right to be secure in my person, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. But it has been, and I stood there and let it be violated because to refuse to allow the search meant that I would be late for a meeting. The lowest point of my life was unzipping my backpack to prove to disinterested cops that I was not a terrorist.

I am afraid, but I'm not afraid of Iraq or of the Taliban or of Al Qaeda. I am afraid that I won't have the gumption to stand up for what is right. I'm afraid that I'll be willing to submit to someone who claims to be able to provide stable, if orange-alerted, comfort.

What time is it?

2006-09-28T00:43:00.000-04:00

http://yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html

Waking up to this guy...

2006-09-27T00:31:00.000-04:00

...outside my bedroom window is not so cool.

Yes, that's a giant drill in his hands. It makes a lot of noise.

Not that I have any remote use for it...

2006-09-25T12:54:00.000-04:00

But this is cool:

http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/teddy/teddy.htm

Re: Yesterday's to-do list

2006-09-23T17:34:00.000-04:00

Accomplished on all counts, except there were (miraculously) no less talented photographers present to whom up to suck. There were only equally or more talented photographers. And $1 PBRs. So it was all good.

And the musical was superfantastic. All hail the Kenny Wade.

Very cool

2006-09-23T17:28:00.000-04:00

Today's to-do

2006-09-22T17:08:00.000-04:00

~~Stop stealing roommate's shampoo and buy some for yourself~~

Use said shampoo on head

Eat too many cookies

Suck up to people less talented than I

Enjoy musical

Executive decisions

2006-09-09T20:47:00.000-04:00

Tonight, I decide that I prefer a crisper crust, simply because it requires just a 400 degree oven and 23-26 minutes, as opposed to the softer crust, which requires 25-28 minutes in a 425 degree oven. In those additional 3 minutes, I just might starve to death. These are concerns an executive must regard with all seriousness.

Special thanks to the random party guest who decided she wanted a pizza, but left it in the freezer, apparently opting instead for a tasty beverage.

Now this is just cool

2006-09-01T21:15:00.000-04:00

http://www.flightphase.com/about.html

Yeah! A dead guy!

2006-08-29T05:30:00.000-04:00

Somewhere in Santa Monica there's a billboard that displays the year's number of smoking-related deaths. My aunt and uncle live very close to it, and one year when I was young enough not to have anything better to do, I went with my family to spend New Year's in CA. And instead of fireworks, we watched the billboard roll back to zero.

I'm reminded of this because of Monument (If if Bleeds, it Leads). This art installation scans thousands of newsfeeds and drops a bright yellow BB for every person reported to be killed. As the artist says, "Thus a confusing ethical situation exists; the viewer finds himself secretly and selfishly waiting for someone to be killed only so that he can watch a little yellow ball bounce around on the floor."

In Santa Monica, when the billboard rolled back to zero, we cheered, wished each other a happy new year, and walked back to my uncle's apartment. But before we were too far away, we heard another set of cheers. We turned to see the source, and the billboard read, "00000001".

W. Mark Felt kinda funny...

2006-08-28T19:26:00.000-04:00

Jeopardy! proves that questions are more interesting than the answers:

Answer:
"I'm the guy they used to call 'Deep Throat.'"

Question:
...
...
...
Not one of the contestants even tried. And this was in the Tournament of Champions.

More invading spaces

2006-08-24T18:25:00.000-04:00

Made with 323 Rubik's Cubes. Dude.

I know my shit stinks...

2006-08-24T03:40:00.000-04:00

...but when I get really gross and sweaty, I still think my armpits smell nice.

Sigh

2006-08-19T16:31:00.000-04:00

Polly Pocket bouces well when thrown against the wall

2006-08-17T20:45:00.000-04:00

But I hear she isn't the cool, original Polly Pocket. This is like disco rocker Polly Pocket.

And she came with pants that make her ass look fat.

Not that I want malaria...

2006-08-16T18:36:00.000-04:00

...but I think tonic water has a really funny flavor.

Is that why it's aided so often by gin?

Mountain Dew?

2006-08-02T14:04:00.000-04:00

No, we drank Dr. Pepper.

This space is invading

2006-07-17T22:33:00.000-04:00

How's this for synchronicity?

First:

Then:

And finally:

Genius

2006-07-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

Exploiting the mayhem

2006-07-10T15:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Italy won the World Cup. Italians are insane. So I knew that if I sat here trying to work, the celebrating Italians of Astoria would do nothing but piss me off, so I went out and intruded on their jubilance. Here are too many unedited photos of that jubilance for your viewing enjoyment.

It's been a while

2006-07-09T21:24:00.000-04:00

I haven't found anything this awesome on teh interweb in a while. But this is totally worth it. If only The Man Show could have been this awesome for more than an episode.

Adam Carolla

Best car ad evrah!

2006-05-16T19:56:00.000-04:00

Good car ads are few and far between. I do not envy the poor bastards who have to come up with new ideas to sell overpriced, dangerous liabilities, but Volkswagen is one of the few companies willing to take a risk on a non-traditional ad.

Case in point, this one:

And here's the reason I love the Internet. You can get away with telling the truth more than you can on network TV.

Lousy carbohydrates

2006-05-11T11:08:00.000-04:00

!!! BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!

Research on bread indicates that:

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!

6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.

7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.

8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.

9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.

10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.

11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.

12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

They look like ants from up here

2006-05-10T01:17:00.000-04:00

When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight, but there's a thunderstorm in the way...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6886880938991195179

The new best thing on the Internet EVRAH

2006-04-17T18:08:00.000-04:00

Sketch Swap is awesome, yo. Check it out. You sketch something. Anything. And you get something in return. Anything.

It reminds me of the Zen Board.

You draw on it with a brush and water, and it looks like ink, but it completely disappears when it dries. It has to do with the impermenance of beauty and of life. What we create is only temporary, and we have to enjoy it while it lasts.

Or it's just some new way to kill time.

We can't kill him!

2006-04-13T19:46:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of fan/fake trailers out there, and a lot of them are pretty bad, but this one is okay. It's a bit long, but it's pretty funny in parts.

I had this idea for a Titanic TV show. Each episode would follow a different group of passengers' journey--why they were leaving Europe, what they hoped for in America, their interactions on the ship, and how they acted as it was going down. And the suspense would come in from seeing if each episode's main character lives or dies. But the best part is that once a week, loyal viewers would get to see Leonardo di Caprio drown. Fun stuff.

But as far as fake trailers go, it doesn't get better than Shining. Maybe Brokeback to the Future.

The best thing on the Internet EVER

2006-04-04T14:16:00.000-04:00

The good people at GM have provided the world with endless potential for entertainment with its latest Chevy Tahoe promotion. I think the idea was originally to promote the car and NBC's The Apprentice by allowing people to put together a car commercial, but my generation's penchant for for cynicism and cleverness knows no bounds--especially on the Internet.

So go watch mine. Then make your own and leave a comment with the link to yours.

Here are some others from viewers of Rocketboom.

I hate buses

2006-04-04T05:17:00.000-04:00

I had to take a bus on Friday. I hate buses.

A video gig I randomly snagged had me trekking out to the middle of nowhere Queens--Floral Park, which is 30 minutes by bus beyond the end of the F train. Or, as I calculate it, it's 35 minutes on foot.

Few sounds irritate me more than the incessant dinging of the Stop Request bell, particularly when it comes immediately after the bus pulls away from its previous stop. This says to me that there is yet another person too lazy to walk the 100 feet between stops. Between 179th St and 256th St, we must have made at least 40 stops, my blood pressure rising with each jerky acceleration and sudden brake for oblivious pedestrians. Aren't people afraid of getting hit by a bus any more?

Of course I'm fully aware that this all stems back to my hatred of taking city the bus in high school, which took 2 hours every day and only got me halfway home. And a lot of that hatred stemmed from my hatred of taking the school bus in middle school, which took 2 hours every day, and during the last hour, I was among the local bullies' favorite pastimes. Every now and then when I'm photographing a hot model, I think about how those kids must be doing now. I wonder if the graveyard shift at 7-11 is as fulfilling.

The clouds burst

2006-04-03T01:34:00.000-04:00

This is just in case you'd like to look at an eagle's nest.

http://www.infotecbsi.com/wildlife/

Of course it's kinda silly to have it on 24 hours a day when there's no infrared or even a really high-gain setting on the camera. It gets pretty dark out there in Canada.

I really hate these colors

2006-03-28T03:40:00.000-05:00

But I love nonscientific polls.

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

10% Upper Midwestern

10% Yankee

5% Dixie

5% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Jiminy Cricket, where are you?

2006-03-24T18:09:00.000-05:00

I wish I were a big enough nerd to understand what's happening here. Or a big enough druggie not to care.

Fun with ferrofluid

2006-03-22T19:16:00.000-05:00

I enjoy supporting useless talents and people with too much time on their hands.

More from this kid.

What big teeth you have, Gift Horse.

2006-03-21T21:35:00.000-05:00

I was just pulling a light boom out of the closet, and I had to exhume it from beneath a ton of toilet paper.

My roommate's wonderful, generous parents are kind enough to occasionally bring a few things for the apartment. Sometimes it's a cleaning product. Once it was a bunch of paper towels. Several times it was a giant, Costco-sized load of toilet paper.

This household currently contains 95 rolls of toilet paper. And we're boys, so that's like 3 years worth.

I think we should make a fort--or a shelter for when the zombies attack.

It was inevitable

2006-03-21T21:26:00.000-05:00

Make it work.

I like pointing out people who are smarter than I

2006-03-17T03:01:00.000-05:00

Panel One

Read all of it. It's worth it. For real this time. And there's a new one every weekday. Awesome.

Prepare to laugh uncontrollably

2006-03-14T03:45:00.000-05:00

It's no wonder David Hasselhoff is so popular in Germany. His lyrics are awesome.

http://dusselhoff.ytmnd.com/

Quotes of the Times

2006-03-13T03:04:00.000-05:00

"Nothing says, 'I want to tell you how to live your life' more than Birkenstocks."
-Jason Reitman, director of Thank You for Smoking

"In Greek the word for stranger and guest are the same. The idea is you never know who that stranger is. It might be a god or goddess in disguise."
-Iris Love, sociable archaeologist

"But when you're on the remote side of an island, a woman with the right accent and some good shoes can go a long way."
-Ira, Bob Morris's partner

"I refuse to call it erotica, because that just sounds like pornography for people who've got more money."
-Alan Moore

And a quick Harpersism--number of times the Times review of Julia Louis-Dreyfus's new sitcom mentions "Elaine": 7

For the record

2006-03-09T03:29:00.000-05:00

On 1/4/06, I wrote:

They'll keep Santino around for a while because they need a wild character, but there's no chance they'll let him win. I'm thinking Chloe or Nick are better bets.

And on 1/18/06, I wrote:

Santino's continued presence is all about ratings, and Chloe is still my favorite to win.

And on 3/8/06, Heidi Klum said:

Chloe, you're in.

As promised

2006-03-09T02:00:00.000-05:00

Is there a point in life where those lessons you learn in kindergarten no longer apply? I think that's the same point at which the loud club disgusts you and you run screaming to the closest quiet bar. It's a resignation, sure, but it's not an entirely bad one. The one thing we should be prepared to face is the inevitable.

Mel and I hadn't been out dancing since Ms. McKay's birthday over a year ago--you know, the night of a million pantsless Santas.

So we decided that we'd give Scenic a shot, as that was the new location of the party we had frequented nearly Saturday night not such a long time ago. We agreed to meet on Houston early enough that the place wouldn't be completely filled with B&T assholes. I, of course, was running late, having been detained by a model who wanted my opinon on the photos I took of her and who wanted to fill me with Croation food and her father's grappa. How could I refuse that?

Well, the trains, as everyone knows, on the weekends, blow. The N was surprisingly fast, but the connecting F was anywhere but 34th St. Luckily, there was free entertainment.

As I decended the stairs to the platform I followed a blatantly drunk girl in a black coat who bumped into a man holding--but definitely not playing--a guitar. She apologized and promptly demanded that he play her something. I stood descretely to the side to listen. One poorly written song about what love is later, and during her glowing review of his work, another girl in a black coat stole the entirety of her attention. Apparently, they were friends of friends and had a habit of running into each other randomly. The bad musician slunk away and I went to look for rats.

There was little in the rat arena (despite 34th St. usually being a good place for them--once I witnessed a pretty serious fight between a young whippersnapper rat and a much larger (and definitely victorious) Master Splinter type). The real action was at the other side of the platform, where a Southern family of 5 cheered at every rat sighting.

Soon enough, the pair of black coatted girls secured a spot near the edge of the platform, which by chance was directly next to me. Black coat number one was very drunk, to the point where she had already cried enough earlier in the evening to turn her mascarra into deep eye bruises. I largely ignored their conversation until I caught that they approached the platform edge in order to see the rats better as well. I didn't hear much of their conversation, but no one could have missed when drunkie pointed at the rat and said, "You're diseased!"

Number one turned to me and said, "What's his name? Wilbur's friend?"

In New York, we're trained to completely ignore anything anyone says to us, particularly on the subway, so my brain knew she was refering to the book Charlotte's Webb, but my mouth hadn't formed the words before she turned back to her friend. Then she accused the rat of not being fat enough to be Wilbur's friend. I shifted my eavesdropping to the Southern family who had moved to my side of the platform, directly on the other side of me than the black coatters. They were talking about what happened when you put a fly in the microwave.

Charlotte (as I had named her) turned back, slapped me on the arm, and said, "TEMPLETON!" and after she realized she had hit me, "Oh, I'm sorry!"

I said, "That's okay. Sometimes I need to punch a stranger, too."

Time passed. By the time her literary conundrum was resolved, we had been waiting for 10 minutes, and another 15 went by before I made my exit. I cursed my lack of reading material. The girls discussed where they were going, and debated running upstairs and catching a cab. I noted that Charlotte and I were going to the same station, so when they finally gave up on the train, I stopped them. Before I finished what little spiel I had, Number Two (who to this day remains nameless) said, "Yes, you're coming with us."

We laughed a lot in the cab, and because Number Two wasn't going as far downtown as Charlotte and I were--and she felt ony the slightest bit of responsibility to see that her drunk friend got home safely--she got out first but left more than enough money to cover the entire trip. Charlotte and I made it downtown, she overtipped with her friend's money, shook my hand goodnight, and disappeared down a side street.

And they tell you not to talk to strangers.

I found Mel, and we went to Scenic. At just midnight it was packed. Mel had to sweet talk her way into the coat check because they claimed they were full (and I don't have the boobs for sweet talking). Upstairs, no one was dancing, and they were playing crappy music, so we went downstairs.

Downstairs, few people were dancing, and they were playing slightly less crappy music, but we found a corner where we'd have some space. Since it was a basement, the ceilings were about seven feet high, but they were padded. I'm unsure if that was for noise dampening or head protection. But worst, people were smoking.

But we hadn't been dancing in over a year, and damnit, we were going to dance! So we did, and there was even a decent enough string of songs to get us drenched in sweat and in need of a water break. The need was bad enough that we sat out through "Welcome to the Jungle". Had we known that would be the last good song of the night, I doubt we would have stopped at all.

We stayed for another hour, hacking through the smoke, trying to dance to the b-sides of the latest hipster bands, but it was useless. Not even two hours, and we were gone. In the heyday of Opaline, we'd be dancing until 4:30am--and that's when we'd go to Odessa for breakfast.

We left before any of this happened:

The good news is that on our way in, we passed an interesting looking bar on 2nd Ave. and Ave. A, and though it was a bit overpriced, its atmosphere was the exact opposite of Scenic's. There was room to sit, nice, calm music, and cute girls (although with it just being Mel and me, it was unlikely that anything could possibly have happened in that regard; great as she is, she's just no wingman (damn Eric and his monogamy)). And big windows--it had huge north and east facing windows, so I'm sure it gets great light all day.

I'm sure this wasn't the last night of dancing, but it was definitely a reminder that I'm not as young and stupid as I once was. I'm just as stupid, but I'm an older kind of stupid.

It's hard out there for a bear

2006-03-08T04:20:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to write about Saturday night, during which I mooched a ride from Stranger Danger, but I've been busy corrupting Pie Bear.

Something about food

2006-03-03T02:44:00.000-05:00

I enjoy eating. Because of that, I learned to cook. But one of my life's greatest ironies is that the more time I pu into cooking, the less I want to eat what I have made. Today, I made a whole pot of shredded pork, and I barely had a tupperware container large enough for all the leftovers.

But the act of cooking is something like meditating. No, that's overblowing it. But it is relaxing and satisfying when it doesn't taste like hell. Like oversalted, freezerburned hell. I like it to be a bit freeform and improvisational. I could be totally pretentious and say it's like jazz--but I won't. It's more like Whose Line Is It Anyway? The improvisations aren't that innovative, and the main goal is to be pleasant and inoffensive. The biggest risk I took was to pour in a couple shots of Jack Daniels. I probably should have used a couple more shots...

Anyway, I was thinking about writing some of my better improvs down for future mutations. I've done it once, on MM, so for now, I'll repeat myself. I'll try not to do that too often.

Okay, here's the recipe for the chicken that's in the oven right now:

First take out the chicken you've had in the freezer but no time to cook. Do this yesterday. When you've caught up with all the MM forum posts, play one more round of Random Photo Fun Roulette, and wash your hands. Butterfly the chicken and save the backbone and gibblets in you bag of parts for future stock use. Wish that you had the time or energy to have marinated or brined the chicken, but don't worry about it too much.

Take the last teaspoon or two from the salt cellar and mix it with some black pepper and Chinese Five Spice. Maybe some thyme. Rub this mix under the breast and thigh skin, as well as everywhere on the outside, but don't use it all. Slice an onion and spread the rings out on a 9x12 glass baking dish. Place the chicken in the dish and pour the rest of the bottle of red wine that no one finished at your last party. 'Cause who drinks so much wine at a party?

Put the chicken in the oven, which you preheated without me telling you to do, right? Like 350, but you can't be sure because the numbers on the dial have worn off.

Take the rest of the spice rub and add enough soy sauce to douse a whole lot of rice. Add a similar amount of honey and a smaller amount of worsterchire sauce. Every 10-15 minutes, pour some of this sauce on the chicken. If you have a flavor injector and aren't too lazy to wash it afterwards, use it.

Cook it all the way through. Sal and Ernie ain't no good dinner guests. Eat it. Enjoy.

If you don't like it, don't blame me. You probably did something wrong.

And now a moment of silence for Random Photo Fun. I miss those days.

Dude, I'm going to Ikea

2006-03-02T17:49:00.000-05:00

Who doesn't love Ikea? Going there is like going to a furniture and lingonbery themed amusement park. My living room wouldn't be complete without my Billy bookcases, and my kitchen would be useless without the Bergsmo 6-drawer aspen chest. And now, the good people at ForbesAutos.com have presented another reason to love the Ikea.

Ikea founder, Ingvar Kamprad is listed by Forbes as the 4th richest person in the world, with a net worth of $23,000,000,000. And here's what he drives:

As a comparison, Dell founder, Michael Dell drives something just as boxy but a bit uglier and a lot more revealing about his endowment:

Something human, something...not

2006-02-28T18:02:00.000-05:00

This makes me really hate my middle school experience, where even the coach made fun of the handicapped kid. Those malicious assholes could make Einstein hate himself. And he is a physicist.

The reason we dig sci-fi is that we don't usually recognize the steps between the known present and the predicted future. Well, here's one of those steps. Remember this moment when you're cruising Rouge City looking for a Jude Law to boff.

I'm so conflicted

2006-02-27T17:13:00.000-05:00

http://www.nipponham.co.jp/hamrins/song/images/taiso_big.mov

Yeah, it really sucks.

2006-02-27T15:30:00.000-05:00

I'm headed out now to pick up some Minimum-Strength Tylenol and some unribbed condoms (for her boredom).

I ain't no stinking artist

2006-02-27T04:28:00.000-05:00

A couple years ago, I went to the Stop and Shop for some pears and blueberries for a pie I was baking. In the lobby (foyer? vestibule?) some charity had set up a card table to sell t-shirts and stuffed animals for whatever cause they were promoting. Apparently I deemed it a worthy cause, and since I'm morally opposed to t-shirts with print on them, I bought a bear.

I like to tell myself that I intended to give the bear later to some kid who would really appreciate it, but the fact is I don't know any kids in the city, and at the time I was going through a period of semi-isolation and loneliness, so I enjoyed the company of a bear while I forged my pastries. I called him Pie Bear. Yeah. Really creative, eh?

Well, the pie turned out to be a success both culinarily and socially, so the whole I'm-keeping-this-bear idea stuck. There were more pies, recipes, experimentations, improvisations, mistakes, triumphs, calories--and Pie Bear never left the kitchen. When I moved to a new apartment, he made himself right at home without much fuss.

In time, my photographic horizons expanded, and models became my subjects of choice. Through them, I reached a level of creative inspiration and drive I had never experienced. Since the 6th grade--right up until a degree in the subject was imminent--I "knew" I was going to be a novelist, but no sense of passion and need to write pushed me at all like what I felt for photographing models, and I think Pie Bear is the difference.

In a moment of silliness with a model one shoot, I asked her to don a punky graphic tee and pose with Pie Bear. We had a good laugh and contrasted his fuzzy cutenes with her feigned attitude, and although the resultant photos didn't exhibit my best technical skills, they were among my favorite shots of the night. From then on, shooting a model meant shooting a model with Pie Bear. (If you've never implemented a tradition on the spot, I recommend it.)

Well, because I tend to overthink things (particularly those things that may be repressed regrets), I was considering why I felt the drive to photograph but not to write, and the conclusion to which I came was that I don't care as much about photography. And because I don't care so much about it, I'm more willing to do silly things--like make every model I shoot pose with a stuffed bear. I would never do that with writing; that would be to disrespect myself as an artist.

But in photography, I feel not like an artist but like an entertainer. In entertainment, the goal is to make people smile and feel a little better for a few seconds. In art, the goal is to make people think and grow and change the world for the better. That's more pressure than my writing mind could bear, so it shut down.

I don't want to be an artist. I just want to make some creative and interesting photographs--and have a good time while doing it. Pie Bear is a good moderator for when I'm leaning to the overly-serious side. He reminds me that being amusing is my ultimate goal, and any greater meaning derived from my work is nice, but it's definitely secondary.