Month: May 2006

This weekend was a long one. I intended to take Friday off to get caught up on some writing, instead I escorted my family around Manhattan prior to going to a memorial dedication service. My grandmother is a US Anzio veteran, and one of the few left alive of a rapidly dwindling breed. I have as many mixed and conflicting feelings about war as I do about many other things, so this was an odd circumstance to attend.

Several years ago, the US Navy commemorated a ship, named after the battleground. My grandmother was there for the launch of the ship. All of the sailors on board idolize the few living veterans remaining today, and there is a very strong connection between these younger members of the armed forces, and people who, on average, are 60 years their senior.

The overall event was very touching for her. The mayor of Anzio was there, and there was much speech making and placard giving. While the initial tone of the speakers was very solemn, bordering on sad, it really took a turn when a politician took the podium, followed by a chaplain. Then I saw the teeth of the government I loathe, and, honestly, being one of two people in a large crowd who were not applauding the expressed sentiments, am more than a little afraid of.

There are also some pics in there of my aunt, cousins and myself on top of the Empire State Building.

Pics Here

After running all over Manhattan to see the empire state, then all the ships in port, we went to a great dinner at Masseria (235 W 48th St b 8th and Bway). From there, I went downtown to see Xmen 3. If you read this stream of tripe at all regularly, you already know my experiences on that.

Saturday was spent chilling and relaxing. I had plans for the evening, but none of them quite worked out how I wanted them to. Sunday was a barbecue extravaganza, wherein we had some great burgers, and I made four gallons of Sangria, and three gallons of margarita. Yesterday was a geek day. All, in all, a full weekend.

there are not enough bad words in our language to express how angered, insulted, and, ultimately, murderously frustrated i was by X3. i didn’t want to see it, but i went along with the plan to try and have a good time anyway.

i am still angry.


these guys could have done a better job, with the nerd writing a better script

in the past week, i have heard way more people talking about “LOST” and “American Idol” than any other remotely relevant issues concerning health care, environment, political state of the union, or economics.

it freaks me right the fuck out. clearly someone read about bread and circuses.

it actually makes me pretty sick to my stomach, when i think about it for too long. the “cultural impact” section of that wikipedia article does too.

EDIT:
Steph McMillan has it pretty much down here:

if you don’t already know here work, scope it here.

yesterday, i had a very odd set of circumstances compress into a very brief period of time.
in prep for brunching, i was seeking an open liquor store. surprisingly, many of the options i know and love near the brunch itself were closed. damn the puritans and the remnants of their blue laws.

in a flash if inspiration, i ran over to warehouse liquors off astor place on broadway, which has saved my butt many times. the first drink i bought legally after turning 21 was at warehouse, except it was not for me, it was for a bunch of kids looking for someone to buy for them out front. i was wandering back to the train from dinner, and they were looking for help. i figured it would be a good war to ring in a legal id.

on the way there, i ran into one of my co-workers, who was out doing errands. we exchanged minor pleasantries, and remarked on how small the goddamn city can be sometimes.

anyhow, walking over, i witnessed something totally hilarious (in an awful way). someone popped the question to his girl, and had been slick enough to hire a photographer to document the process. the street was fairly empty as that area goes, but the photographer did not seem out of place, and was tailing the couple diligently but conspicuously. the guy guided his gal over to a newsstand, which was butt up against a little bench thing. he then took a knee, and produced a ring box. the photographer hurried over and started snapping away. when mr. man popped open the box, and the question, the woman was speechless, and all she could do was shake her head. much to mr. man’s chagrin, she was not shaking it affirmatively.

i was far enough away that i couldn’t hear what they were saying, but i was close enough to see the looks on their faces. he was totally shaken, and asked something again, gesturing a bit more with his free hand, and proffering the ring with a bit more urgency. her response to question two was to shake her head no vehemently.

all the while, the photographer snapped away. finally, the guy got up, pocketed the ring, and walked over to the photographer, who he told loudly and angrily “ok, you can stop now.”

i was going to catch a cab to run back to brunch, but instead ran over to beard papa first, to bring extra delicious goodness. when i came out to hail a cab, who cut across broadway at 30mph but tom, who apparently spotted me from afar coming down broadway.

he gave me a free ride back to the brunch spot, and updated me on his life and situation (paying way more attention to me than the road, much to the detriment of some sunday cyclists). apparently his son is now re-committed, and he has taken another roommate on to share his expenses, at least until the end of august, when his son should be coming up. apparently the roommate is a large jamaican man. tom was very unhappy with the situation, but, as he put it, he had no other choices if he wanted to keep his apartment.

his girlfriend situation didn’t pan out as he hoped either. apparently he is going after some indian exchange student he met at the hospital his son is at. i told him to be careful.

all of this took place in less than an hour.

this is one of the many reasons i love this city, despite its costliness, impracticality, and constant horrors.

how was your weekend?

one of my ex-business parters had, once upon a time, installed network-based security systems back in the early 90’s down in virginia. he relished telling the story of the score he didn’t make. apparently, one of the clients for the company he worked for was a storage facility for a shipping company that was subcontracting to the department of the treasury. they were installing this state-of-the-art security system because, apparently, this secluded warehouse complex was where the treasury department was storing bills and coins on the way to be destroyed. well, joe and his coworker are up on a rolling ladder, setting up motion sensors, when a bunch of guys with forklifts start loading the space. they were supposed to wait until the install of the security system was finished, but someone cocked up the schedule, and they began loading pallets full of plastic-tension sealed bills in little green cubes into the warehouse.

as two bozos were fifty feet above, installing the security system.

joe swore he always regretted not at least breaking into one of those pallets. i always joked that he was such a loser he would probably hit a stack of singles.

either way, it was one of the more interesting “what is the most amount of money have you ever seen at one time/place?” stories i ever heard.

the point of this missive, of course, has nothing to do with money, just the scarcity of seeing lots of it in one place. there is this old joke about a million dollars and faith:

“Do you believe in [insert deity name]?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve never seen [deity name], so why should I believe in him/her/it/them?”

“Have you ever seen a million dollars?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know it exists, if you’ve never seen it?”

[insert revelation and damnation or salvation, depending which invisible man you believe in]

lame, for sure, but, poignant. today i saw something that is part of my rolling repertoire, but that i have never actually seen before.

a bus load of nuns.

no shit, as i was coming in to work, there was an entire bus loaded with korean nuns discharging passengers. i was so wrapped up in the moment, i didn’t even think to snap a pic. by then, they had dissolved into mist and turned into wolves/bats, as nuns are wont to do.

but yeah, have you ever seen a bus load of nuns, or a million dollars?

i’m beat.
i have all these things i want to do, and am really frustrated at my lack of ability to get them all rolling the way i want to.
hopefully, i will be able to get rolling on one project soon, which will create flowers in other places through creative cross pollination.

for now, allow me to entertain you with:
Some Good Key West Fishin

i’ll be here all night. really. try the veal.

one of my favorite pieces by tom waits is “just another dime store novel”. it is not really a song so much as a spoken word piece. he has one interlude within it where he describes himself, as a typing teacher, taking an old typewriter down to a bar featuring a jazz open mic night, and “typing like a crazy man” with the rest of the band.

in the past month, i’ve put about 20k words worth of weight into the world. unfortunately, no more than 5k have been on any singular project. overall, my work is still in the very low weight percentile for where i want it to be at this point in the year. i know it is only may and shit, but summer is upon us! with summer comes distractions. good distractions. hopefully, great distractions. but distractions nonetheless.

i have taken tomorrow off. my goal is to put in at least another 5k, maybe 7 if i am feeling edgy.

i wish they made weight gain 4000 for books.

have you ever had so many things to do that when you stop to think about all the things you have to do you start to freak out because there doesn’t seem to be any way you can get done all the things you have to do as well as all the things you want to do?

yeah.

that’s me these days.

yesterday, after attempting to negotiate with, and, ultimately abandoning a gypsy cab, i lost my cigarette case. i have had it since 1994, when i bought it in the east village. this makes two items out of my longtime smoking accessories which have evaporated in the past two years.

the case was silver, had a simple latch-catch, and had a vinyl centerpiece on the front that read:

orgasm donor

it was funny on so many levels. i hope whoever finds it uses it well. i need to shop for something new now. i need a wallet as well, so i am going to have to shop around for a replacement. i will miss that case though – so many memories…

two boys and a girl
chased into abandoned house during ww2 london
boys bust into basement, blunder into jungle, are chased by giant red spider
jungle – wars with spiders, boys in one tribe, girl in another
war between tribes, settled through death of spider king
marriage of boy to girl
shaman, sight, floating chunk of land, to other atolls – other places of power
one is overgrown with mutant black vines and red spiders, giant spider returns
run through the atoll, everyone returns as children, just before house is bombed

i feel like the walking dead right now. i haven’t been sleeping well, and my pace has kept me pretty exhausted. i had a funny feeling about my server last week, at about 3am. it was at this point that i realized two things:

1- i hadn’t done a backup since my crash, and i have done a lot of work. i managed to get that done monday night. in genning a mirror for backup purposes last night, i had to swap my dns to test everything out. when i swapped it back, my primary server asked for a reboot. it did not reboot, and lies smoking on my floor. i guess that is what i get for constantly cobbling machines together. one of these days i’ll commit to making my server a thing of beauty. as it is, my backup box (which will now be the new server) is a good deal faster than what i was using now, but i am loathe to re-invest, again, in scsi when sata is so much cheaper. any geeks with a mind on the matter out there? i’m in the 3/4 terrabyte storage range mind you, so we are talking mondo bucks on storage space, considering i tend to expand at about 15-23% annually.

in the meantime, i am back to no webspace, no internet-accessible resources, no spiders, and no email at my work/personal accounts. i feel like someone lopped off a limb.

2- it is may, which means it is time for my annual reading of stephen king’s ‘It’. i have been rereading this book every may since 1987. going away to my grandparents over the summer (generally for a week after school got out, before camp started) was the only time i could read as much of what i wanted to. my grandparents didn’t seem to care what i read, so long as i read. my grandmother also somehow never figured out that even though waldenbooks gave you 10% back, you still lost money in the end, even with al the 5$ gift certificates. most of the impressionable reading of my youth was done in pennsylvania, without parental censorship. ever since my mom got shouted out for letting me read ivanhoe for a 4th grade book report, she always asked what i was reading, to be sure that she wouldn’t have any other headaches.

i still wonder if that 4th grade teacher had ever even read ivanhoe.

i posted back around VD that i had been contacted by diamanda galas’ folks about a photo i took of her ending up on the front of her website.
whee!