recap

Talk about an action packed weekend.

Firstly, lets get the Yankees out of the way. Yup, they lost. Big. No, I don’t want your condolences, nor is it funny. I didn’t make fun of Mets fans to their face, I really don’t appreciate those same people not returning the favor.

Thursday night I made chicken wings. Lots of chicken wings. They were O.K., but I forgot my super-hot sauce for the spicy wings, so, while they were flavorful, they were not as hot as I wanted them to be. Drank gin & tonics, watched Yankees lose.

Friday, I took a mental health day. I was going to prep for a geekfest on Saturday, but that ended up getting canceled, so I beat Halo, and rearranged my whole bedroom instead. Funny thing about beating Halo – I started midnightish, and would have sworn I played for about two hours, but it ended up being like 4:45 by the time I went to bed. Good planning on my part. Funny thing about re-arranging your room. When your room is 104 inches wide, and your bed is 96 inches long, and about four feet wide? The diagonal of the bed is wider than your room. Go-go gadget fifth grade math!

Saturday’s geekfest being canceled, I read a lot, puttered around, cleaned, reorganized. Saturday night I went to the Knitting Factory to see Strung Out and a couple other bands with . The show was decent, but about 10 minutes into Strung Out’s set, I got kicked in the back of the head, right at the base of my spine by a crowd surfer. If I wasn’t wearing my hat, I woulda been in the hospital. As it was, I ended up seeing spots and dizzy for almost a half hour. I went outside and waited for and his buddy from Canada, who were coming downtown after attempting to escape the Arcade Fire show on Randall’s. I was pretty pissed about being hurt, and even more pissed about losing my hat. Amazingly, after the show, I found it in a grimy beer puddle. I washed the hell out of it and dried it. Good as new. Wish I could say the same for my neck/head.

Due to head-wound, I didn’t sleep Saturday night. This made Sunday very interesting.

Sunday was a culture day. I had planned on meeting up with to see Bladerunner late in the day, but that got kiboshed by cultural overload. I went to see Oliver Sacks at the New Yorker festival with Alicia, and was throughly enthralled, as I have been other times seeing him. The combination of his frightening intelligence, venerable experience, sharp wit and compelling subject matter kept us rooted for two hours. As a bonus, I got a pre-release copy of his new book, Musicophilia, which I read yesterday. It is, like all of his books, something which spawned a reading list for me. So many things to learn, so little time.

After Sacks I we went to the final showing of Iphigenia 2.0. To say the show was powerful is to sell it short. The Classical manipulation of the fourth wall was re-imagined in a way that actually made you squirm as an audience member, particularly since the twist of the tale was brought ’round again on our current military engagements. The acting was very tight, the use of staging/space very effective, and the use of dance and music were absolutely brilliant. Aside from some _very_ sparse stage elements, there was nothing in the scenery/costuming to suggest Greece, except for the dancing and music, which was tremendous.

Yesterday, I read Musicophilia, Tried LOTR Online (hated it), and got onto the closed beta for Sega’s “Universe at War“. This is particularly interesting since it is a LIVE game, so it is built for the PC and the Xbox 360 at the same time. I haven”t played enough to have a good feel yet, but I liked what I saw.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon/evening with Alicia. Since Lisa and I ended, she and I have been seeing each other with changing levels of regularity and significance. I spent a decent part of the weekend with her, and all of the cultural stuff. I continue to be enthralled and amused by the ways she knows me, and can challenge me on multiple levels.

This week I have a pretty hefty workload, but it is a short week, and my boss is out. Next weekend we are going upstate for Oktoberfestin, and Sunday, hopefully, will be a rain-date for geekfest.

If the fucking weather doesn’t turn soon, I’m moving to Canada. This whole August in October thing is major bullshit.