ooh i need a badass title

Jet Setting

2011-12-16T21:32:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night, I leave for what will be the start of my 7th round trip to the East Coast this year.

Holy. Crap.

This was for 3 weddings, 2 bridal showers, 1 funeral, and finally, Christmas. And I'm not even counting Kenya in that because that was technically crossing the Atlantic, and was tacked onto the beginning of one of the wedding trips, so there were no extra continental crossings there. Unless you count Africa, which I probably should, but 8 trips to the East Coast (of two different continents) is just too overwhelming. Anyway. It's been a busy year.

To say that I am travel-weary would be an understatement. I will have spent nearly 10 weeks in not-my-bed over the course of the year. And over 50 hours on airplanes. I guess that dude played by George Clooney in that movie from a year ago would scoff at such statistics, but right now it feels like a lot. And it definitely feels like it should have earned me more frequent flyer miles than it did—I still don't have enough for another trip back East, after all of that.

And yet, somehow, in the middle of all of this, I feel like I'm finally growing some roots in the damp clay soils of California. There are finally things that I will be sad to miss happening in the Bay Area this weekend.

And there are just as many people back East who I am so, so excited to see again. I continue to call it home. I just have many homes now, painfully far away from each other. But, on the bright side, I'm always excited to go back to every one of them.

I can't, I have roller derby.

2011-12-14T23:55:00.000-05:00

So a week after getting married, I went over to Oakland, put on some roller skates

[Interlude: holy cow, I just saw a blimp! What crazy thing is my job doing today that there is a blimp over it?]

Anyway... I strapped on some roller skates—the kind you skated in when you were a kid, with 4 wheels in a square, but these didn't have Barbie on them—and tried out for the B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls flat-track roller derby league.

Yes, this is a thing that exists. Across the country, women (and men) are spreading plastic surfaces out in warehouses and other cheaply-rentable places, taping off an oval track, and skating around and around and hitting each other. It's an actual sport with actual rules. There's some showmanship, but nothing is staged. Unless you go to that one 'no-rules' banked track league in northern New Jersey, which is more like pro wrestling.

Anyhoo, I made tryouts!

What followed was three months of probation, where I went to as many practices as possible, trying to get drafted onto a team. I learned skating, hitting, strategy... A little bit of everything. Probably the most fun were the once-a-week scrimmages that gave me more game experience over those three months than I saw in two years of varsity college hockey (scrimmage time included).

To me, derby is all the awesome of varsity sports, minus all of the drama of high school and college, with some extra showmanship thrown in. What could possibly be more fun for an ex-hockey player/ex-dancer?

I quickly formed an addiction and am already wondering where I'll get my fix when I go home for the holidays, where the local leagues aren't practicing between Christmas and New Year's (Slackers! I'm looking at you, Gotham!) Well, not to worry (unless you're my husband or someone else who wants to see me at all in the new year), the new season starts on January 15th!

The Air Up There

2011-08-30T13:57:00.000-04:00

Near Lenana Peak, Mt Kenya, July 2011

To be just a little kick-ass on our honeymoon, and earn all the lazing around on the beach we planned on doing later, A and I decided to start off the trip by hiking up all 4,985 meters (16,355 ft) of Mt. Kenya¹. And because we're stubborn like that, we, unlike every other white person we saw on the mountain, decided to actually carry our own packs. We felt pretty badass about that part, at least after we realized how few people do it.

The trip started by the side of the road outside of Chogoria, where the bus from Nairobi had dropped us off. Motorcycle taxi drivers rushed over, hoping to take us into town, but we opted to be met by our guide in a car². Still a little dazed from having landed in Nairobi at 1:30 that morning, I followed A's lead into a local hotel (food joint) where we had the typical upcountry meal: ugali, a corn paste made into a fairly solid chunk; some sort of cooked meat; and sukuma wiki, or sauteed collard greens.

After stocking up on some vegetables for dinner that night, we got in the 4-wheel drive to get up to the park gate. The driver was clearly experienced, and expertly got us through many muddy ditches, even helping out another stuck car along the way. We reached the park gate, where we would stay in a banda (bare-bones hut) that night, by mid afternoon.

View of the mountain from Meru Mt Kenya Lodge, at the trailhead.

And then things started to get interesting. We quickly realized that we'd forgotten a number of items we'd probably need for the trip, like enough cash to pay the park fees, the fuel tank for our camping stove, and warm gloves. But our guide saved the day on all accounts, and we managed to beg and borrow our way into at least the bare necessities for the trek.

We awoke on day 1 of the trip at about 3,000 meters, after a night broken up only by the sound of water buffalo horns scraping against the walls of the banda. After a bit of breakfast, we packed up and started what would be a 17k day. We headed up a red dirt path through the lush green fields, filled up on filtered stream water, and enjoyed the sun. Slowly, the lush greenery gave way to rockier, dustier terrain. The trees dwindled and then disappeared altogether, replaced by Giant Groundel, which basically looks like an alpine palm tree.

The tent, a giant groundsel, the outhouse, and me.

After a long day, we finally made it to Mintos Campsite, where our guide had a hut but we had to pitch a tent. We were on a slight hill, near a few tarns (alpine lakes fed by glaciers), and 4200 meters into the sky. Breathing was becoming difficult, but it was ok as long as you took it slow. Of course, when I did small things like go over to the tarns to pump water or jump out of the tent in the middle of the night to pee, I forgot all this, and would take a good couple minutes on my return to catch my breath again.

The next day, we awoke to a frozen tent. We'd been warm enough, but the condensation from our breath on the rain fly had become sheets of ice. We had a short day ahead, so we let the tent thaw and dry while we leisurely cooked up some oatmeal. The Austrians camping next to us, who, like most of the other Europeans we saw, had not only porters but a chef, had pancakes and hot chocolate. I'm not sure I'd feel like I was camping if I had pancakes for breakfast.

Eventually, the tent thawed—or we gave up on it, I can't quite remember—and we packed up and made our way onward and upward. We scrapped our back-up plan of hiking to another mid-mountain hut³ in favor of our original plan of sleeping at the hut just next to Lenanas Peak, and up we went. After some very steep (and therefore very slow) climbing, we reached the snow line. Snow! On the Equator! SNOW! Ok, yeah, so snow line. Moving on.

By this point, I'd learned to count my steps per breath. On the steepest parts, I was down to one. Step-inhale-exhale. Step-inhale-exhale. Thinking so consciously about it helped make it bearable, and pass the time. It felt downright leisurely when we got to shallower terrain and I could spread it to 2 breaths per 3 steps. We made it to Austrian Hut by lunch time. A was feeling a bit of a chest cold, so we made some Ramen for lunch and took a nap. In the afternoon, we made it over to check out the glacier. Glacier! On the Equator! GLACIER!

The next morning, we got up at 4:30⁴, bundled up as best we could, and climbed the icy rocks to Lananas Peak. There was no air. It was frigid. And we got there early, meaning we had to sit around waiting in the frigid vacuum for the sun to come up. What's interesting, though, at that altitude, is that my body had so little oxygen that it had to concentrate all of its blood in the muscles I was using to get up the mountain, so my hands and feet went numb on the way up; however, once we were up and I was resting, my body had the chance to rush warm blood back into my extremities and I started to warm up a bit. Usually isn't it the moving around that warms you up? Anyway, we managed to get one shot of ourselves at the top of the mountain, in the dark, before the camera froze.

You'll just have to trust me that those blurry smudges are us at the top of a mountain.

We started our descent soon after the sun came up, as it was still freezing. We collected our packs at Austrian Hut and went down the other side of the mountain. The hike down began with a steep descent down a hillside of frozen fine gravel. It was soft enough that it felt like descending through sand, almost. We finally reached the valley and made our way over to MacKinder's Hut in time for breakfast (seriously, it was 9am and we were already halfway back down the mountain). Meanwhile, some rock hyraxes tried to have their own breakfast, courtesy of our backpacks. I'd have been more annoyed if they hadn't been just so darn cute!

After breakfast, we walked. And walked and walked. We went back up for some reason (seriously?), climbed around some rocks, and then hit... The Vertical Bog. It was more like a diagonal marsh, but who's counting? I proceeded downward with "The Neverending Story" playing in my head the whole way⁵. We eventually made it through (turns out an hour and a half of slogging down a marsh gets old, even with an awesome soundtrack), and were back under the tree line. More red dirt paths, then 9k of road later, we passed some herd animals and were at the gate!

Tired, but accomplished, we ate meat with our hands again and passed out by 9pm.

_{1: Actually Mt. Kenya is 5,199 meters (17,057 ft) at its tallest point. But the two tallest peaks require hella mountaineering gear and experience, so we, like most people, hiked up the third-tallest peak armed only with our boots and hiking poles.

2: Had we known the guide was just going to hire a taxi to come pick us up, we'd have gone for the motorcycles. I guess I'll just have to wait for my next trip to Kenya to enjoy that particular adventure.

3: What with our lack of preparedness, we'd planned to go to a lower hut on the second night, where it would be warmer. This would have involved waking up at 2am the following day to hike up to the peak in time for sunrise, which for some reason is what everyone does. Looking back, it was certainly majestic to watch the sun rise from the top, but it would have been plenty impressive to see the mid-morning view.

4: WAY better than 2am (see previous footnote).

5: ARTAX!}

I've been linked!

2011-04-15T21:22:00.000-04:00

Well, doyle went and linked my blog, so I guess I'd better actually post something.

We moved! We live in the Mission in San Francisco now, where there are not enough back yards for us to have one, alas. But there are more coffee shops and taquerias than we know what to do with, so I guess it's a trade-off =D

So in addition to nobody's-watching-so-I-can-look-like-a-crazy-person dance parties in my living room, I've also been doing some serious ass-kicking at the gym. Last fall I started Crossfit, which basically uses gymnastics and weightlifting moves to train for the zombie apocalypse. We run around and jump on boxes and do pull-ups¹ and push-ups and handstands and throw heavy weights around.

I guess the thing I really like about it is that it reminds me of playing college sports, but without the sexism. Back in college, despite being on a women's team, there were the subtle hints that we weren't as good as the boys (they ate at steakhouses on road trips while we had Denny's; they never passed to us in off-season pick-up games...). At Crossfit, the coaches expect everyone to go hard, we all encourage each other, and nobody's threatened by a woman who can bench press her bodyweight (unless they're competing against each other, of course).

And at the end of the day, I feel like I can kick a little more ass than I could yesterday. I walk a little taller. The soreness in my abs and legs reminds me of how hard I'm working.

They're doing a massive worldwide online competition now, and I threw my hat in. So far, not a week has gone by where I wasn't at least a little lacking in a skill. I made it through the last round by the skin of my teeth, as 20% of the competitors dropped out. But it's pushed me to improve on my skills--double unders, clean and jerk, kipping pull-ups--more than I would have otherwise. And by next year's competition I'll see just how much better I can do.

^{1. Erm... some of us try to do pull-ups. But I'm getting really close! With kipping at least.}

Dance Party!

2011-03-02T01:48:00.000-05:00

Work has been crazy this week.* I haven't made it to the gym at all, and have instead been spending 12-hour days at the office trying to get shit done. I did accomplish much shit-doing, but I also managed to start going a bit stir crazy. And so, when I got home tonight, I pumped up my guilty-pleasure-pop mix on Grooveshark and jammed out in the (YELLOW) living room.**

At first I was all careful like I was in dance class, doing very balletic (but still energetic!) moves and trying my very rusty hand at on-the-spot choreography. And then something very odd indeed happened. I stopped caring about being good. Rather, I just shook and wiggled and bounced my way into endorphin-rush-induced frenzy.

At risk of sounding like a native, it was Hella fun. I recommend.

And now, back to work...

* In all fairness, this week is 2 days long because tomorrow we leave for our ski trip offsite. But in all fairness in the other direction, we all have a hard deadline tomorrow at 10am.

** Toxic was mysteriously missing. Luckily there's enough Lady Gaga to make up for the MIA Britney.

The Damp Season

2010-10-17T20:58:00.000-04:00

We're renaming the seasons in California. Not as in 'another referendum that will probably cost more than voters are willing to pay for and we'll go deeper into debt' renaming the seasons, just A and I have decided that the spring-summer-winter-fall quad-chotomy is imprecise in describing what the climate does here. It's a desert that gets wet in the darker months, or something like that. We only have two seasons. In April, it stops raining and the Sun shines brighter, becoming oppressively bright and dry by July/August or so. Then around October or November, the rain comes back, and the mild weather somehow chills you to the bone.

And so, I present, The Bright Season and The Damp Season.

Today marked the beginning of the damp season, with the first real rainy day since June (yeah, last damp season stuck around way too long). The tomatoes were probably the only thing really happy about it. The leaves are falling off the trees, despite not having to worry about snow coming and callously ripping them off or anything. By December, it will be gray and dark, the deciduous trees will look dead, leafless in the middle of fields of green, healthy grass.

There is still, as of today at least, that quite autumnal feeling that things are getting darker and cooler and we're working our way toward the winter solstice. I finally find myself in the mood to wear sweaters and scarves and hoodies with thumb holes. Actually, I had to wear hoodies all summer too, as evenings are always long-sleeve weather. But now they feel extra cozy. And I can put on introspective music like Arcade Fire and curl up inside without feeling like I should be out playing in the sun. Squashes and pomegranates and apples fill the shelves of the organic section of the supermarket, with the ever-enticing "California" label on them, indicating some amount of locality to my produce.

And the holidays, with a much-anticipated trip back East, wade ever closer. Despite the chill-you-to-the-bone 50°F, the Boston winter will still be a kick in the pants. But I'll be happy in my winter coat and my parents' justifiably heated house (we can never quite convince ourselves that it's cold enough outside to put on the heat here) and the candles and twinkles and other trappings of keeping ourselves happy despite the 10 or fewer hours of daylight.

And time hurries on.

These Are Not the Goats You Are Looking For: Henleyville Race Report

2010-09-19T20:57:00.000-04:00

Editor's note: I'm going to use a bunch of terms that none of you know. As such, there is a glossary at the bottom of the post.

So I did my first road bicycle race today. 3 18-mile laps through flat, flat, flaaaat Central Valley California. But really I should start this story earlier, like last Friday (cue Fight Club-style cut-back to the real start of the story).

One of my fellow SF2G'ers is also a racer on a fancy team that wears lots of blue polka dots. She's way fast and pretty obsessed with racing. Also, her team is recruiting. (How could they possibly need to do this when they have the best-looking kits in the area? No I'm serious, they're rad.) Her latest scheme in getting me to join was to introduce me to a teammate who lives in the East Bay and likes to ride around with people. So on Saturday we had a blind riding-buddy date (awww.)

And then in the emails we were exchanging to plan this date, she mentions that this race coming up would be a great one to try as a first race, and oh by the way she could give me a ride. Also it's flat. Ok, I was in.

After doing our pre-ride on Saturday, I rushed home, showered, packed some stuff, went back out to run errands, and then finally made it uuuup the hill to her house to meet her and the other woman to drive out to the Corning, CA Econo-tel so that we could be in Henleyville at ass-crack-of-morning AM Sunday.

After some sandwiches in the only non-McDonald's place in the "town," we called it a night at 9pm. Woooo Saturday night!

Ok, so. Bright and early. Or rather, so early it wasn't even bright, we got up, packed our stuff back onto the car, and headed to Starbucks. Some of Corning's Finest were having their morning coffee there as well and asked if there was some bike race because they'd been seeing spandex all morning. Us: "Yes, the Henleyville road race." Police: "Henleyville isn't even a town." Ummmm.... We passed many olive and almond trees. And goats! One of the women in the car commented that we shouldn't get distracted by the goats--women's races tend to slow down to look at the goats. These goats were close to the start/finish line; an especially bad place to slow down.

Flash forward to the race. I had my awesome Battle 4 Brooklyn jersey on (up yours team kits!) and was in a group of about 15 total Cat 4 women. "Stay at the front; stay on a wheel," everyone had told me. And "don't pull!"

So I did! For the first 15 miles or so, I stayed 2-3 riders back, close enough to the front that I was with the more consistent riders, but far enough back I was able to avoid pulling. We went up the "hill" and back down; handled all the turns just fine; things were hunky-dory.

And boring. OMG, riding along a mostly flat 18-mile loop, staring at the ass of some logo-addled bike shorts, is pretty friggin boring. This part of the race is just to work your legs a bit so that by the third lap they can separate the men from the boys. But the first lap is easy for everyone, especially averaging 18mph, especially when the view is of the same rider for 5 miles.

So, I made things interesting. For me at least. I was having trouble staying in the pack, kept getting bumped off to the side. And I'd seen the goats! Clearly the first lap was near over. So I sped up and got in front of everyone. It wasn't an attack, per se, as I wasn't really going any faster, but I figured that even if I wasn't supposed to pull, it was good etiquette and I might as well step up for a bit.

We turned, and turned again, and I was still in front. The start/finish line (end of the first of three laps) was not approaching. Uh-oh, those were not the goats I was looking for. I fiiiinally made it back into the pack right around when we passed the goats I was looking for. The women I knew gave me some "good job!"s for pulling, but I knew that loosely translated to "you're gonna be done soon, n00b." But I was ok with that. My goal was to stay in it through the first lap, and--hey there goes the start/finish line! I'd made it! So I continued to stay in.

Then things took a turn. I ended up at the back. Everyone around and in front of me was squirrely. But I was still with the pack! I tried moving around, getting on wheels up ahead, but the gaps were tight and I was getting tired and less aggressive. And the feed hill was coming up--I had to get to the right lane to get a refill!

Uh-oh. On the way up the hill, toward the feed, the front started speeding up. I was stuck at the back, and also tired. Or just too slow. I got dropped. As I grabbed my shiny new (used... but hopefully cleaned) water bottle, the feeders yelled "You can still catch them!" I thought I just maybe could, as I had been descending faster than the group all day. I went fast, with nobody to draft off of. And they went faster. The group, and the two women ahead of me who'd started to fall back from the group, all continued to shrink until they were dots on the horizon. And then they were gone. I'd been dropped. I kept going hard, but there was no way.

And then, my savior! A fellow rider caught up to me and yelled "get on my wheel!" So I did (well, once she'd passed enough that I wouldn't have crashed into her). And she pulled me slower than I'd been going. This is actually still ok strategy, as it takes a lot less energy. I sat on the wheel for a while, and then went up for another pull. I kept pulling and pulling, until a van came along side me and yelled "There's another rider about 200m back, going the same pace as you!" So I had dropped her, oops. So I time trialed. I just rode, as fast as I knew I could keep up, until the finish. And this time I was done. No way I was time trialing another 18 miles with no hope of catching the group. Also I wasn't sure if I was supposed to stop, having been dropped. But then once I'd put the bike back by the car and went back to the start to watch the finishes, there went that other woman cruising on around a third time.

But I had completed my goal! I stayed in for a lap. I did get a "you pulled too hard and too long too early" from one of the women I'd met, but I knew that already. And it had made things more interesting for me. And now I've raced road.

Glossary
Cat: short for Category. 1 is the best, 4 is the... least best. To move to a better category ("cat up"), one must win some races and earn upgrade points.

Feed (hill): The feed is the area where you get to show how awesome it is to race bikes by littering and stealing! You throw your water bottle off to the side of the road somewhere, and then someone hands you a new one, full of water. The $35 has to pay for something I guess. They eventually find your water bottle on the side of the road and bring it back to you. Mine came back with a different color top, but I'm not gonna complain about that too much. The feed in this race was on a hill, aptly called the "feed hill." I'm betting that they're actually often on (up)hills so that speeds are slower.

Kit: the silly padded shorts and lycra jerseys worn by cyclists on teams. They have lots of logos on them and are very matchy.

On a wheel: The position in which you're behind another rider but close enough to be in their slipstream, taking advantage of full drafting action!

Pull: To lead the group. You do all the work while everyone else drafts off of you. Typically, everyone takes a few turns pulling, but as it was my first race and there was no way I was going to win anyway, I may as well have stayed in for as long as I could by avoiding pulling everyone else.

SF2G: Group of people, whom some would call insane, brought together by their love of meeting at 6:30am and riding 40+ miles to get to their jobs in Silicon Valley. Also enjoy drinking beer, but not usually during the ride.

Squirrelly: Mark of a n00b. When cycling in a group, and especially in a race, one is supposed to "hold their line," or continue in a straight line and not swerve, and ideally to hold about the same speed so that it is easy to draft behind them at close range. Being squirrelly is the opposite of that. It's not fun to ride next to and behind squirrelly riders.

Time trial: A race done solely by time. Starts are staggered and riders aren't allowed to draft. Bikes with crazy handlebars that you can rest your forearms on, and those super-aero helmets, are for time trials. Such things are not safe for road races, which are (ideally) ridden in groups.

AAToC

2010-05-19T00:59:00.000-04:00

Not to be confused with the Amgen Tour of California—which just today rode from San Francisco to Santa Cruz—the A (me) and A (boyfriend) Tour of California took place this past weekend, and took us from San Francisco to Santa Cruz... and back!¹

So early Saturday morning, A and I packed a few clothes and tools, an extra tire, and two extra tubes into our panniers, grabbed our fancy phones and wallets, donned our spandex, merino, and other fancy technical fabrics, and set out on our first tour on our two-weeks-old (to us! it's an '89 Santana) tandem bike. As we don't have a drag brake yet, we packed light and did a credit card tour, meaning we ate out and slept at a B&B instead of packing camping equipment and food.

Braving unseasonably chilly air, lack of sleep, and a mild hangover from a fancy dinner and show the night before, our intrepid travelers had eggs and coffee and hopped on the BART, as there's no other way to get a bike across the bay. From there, they used their fancy phone to rethink their route, as the BART map showed that the Colma stop clearly let off way closer to the coast than the South San Francisco stop they'd planned to go to.

So, at Daly City, we exited the train, only to realize as the doors closed that we'd left one stop too early. Oh well, this was close enough. We started out on John Daly Boulevard² and rode up to Skyline Drive, then to Skyline Blvd (the smaller residential road paralleling Skyline Drive until it veers off down a hill toward the ocean). We made the usual snarky comments about the houses all looking the same. The scene was made even more surreal by the crazy fog. Hello, San Francisco suburbs.

After some more riding through random residentia, we arrived back on Rte 1.³ On our way back down the first big hill, the rear of the bike started feeling a bit wobbly. We pulled into a turnout and discovered that the rear tire had pretty much disintegrated, probably due to not having been changed since 1989. There are some great pictures of this, all on A's computer. So I took some pictures while A changed the tire, and we were off again toward the (hopefully) sunny beaches of Santa Cruz.

It was a bit of a slog. We still felt less than awesome from the previous night's wine, and the fog had yet to lift. At least getting back down to about sea level, the fog became clouds and no longer interfered with our view of the road 30 feet ahead of us, but it just wasn't quite the California Coastal ride we'd imagined. We stopped and had Clif bars. We stopped and had some more Clif bars. We realized we wouldn't make it to Santa Cruz in time for lunch. We had some more Clif bars, figured we'd have to make it to Davenport before we found any lunch places anyway, and continued.

And then, the sun came out! All was not lost. We redoubled our efforts, thus doubling our speed, and figured we'd be in Santa Cruz in no time. But we also figured we had time to stop at the barn advertising pies and coffee. How could we not? And once we were full of not only Clif bar but strawberry and rhubarb pastries and fresh coffee, and our way was full of sunlight and blue sky, we decided that we could make it to Santa Cruz before the next meal.

We pulled into Santa Cruz around 2. After a nostalgic tour of A's college memories, we stopped at a bar/coffee shop for a beer. As students studied all around us, we chatted with a dude passing by who at 65 had taken up the piano, and now, at 85, was wandering around listening to recordings of his music. I'd never have guessed before he told us. And who knows, maybe it was all made up.

After the well-earned beer, we headed over to the boardwalk to do something A had never done as a college student: ride the roller coaster! America's 6th-oldest coaster, at 85 years, it was as smooth as rides one-tenth its age (and smoother than that one at Six Flags New England, that if it's called the Mind Eraser like I think I remember it, must be so named for its jiggling-your-brain-cells-to-mush capabilities). Not all that big, even compared to Phoenix or Cyclone, but a good ride nonetheless.

Finally, we went to A's favorite old taqueria and had the requisite Super Burritos. They were huge, and pretty damn hella.

Full to overflowing with burrito, we continued away from town and up toward campus. We could hear the drum circles in the distance as we toured the school that more closely resembles a woodsy summer camp than the brick-and-stone-and-one-main-quad New England schools I'm used to.

The sun had started making its way down toward setting as we began our final climb, which it turns out is a descent this ear in the OToC, but is nonetheless an intense hill. And as with any hill, when we reached the top (or at least our turnoff), we got to go back down.

From the back of the bike, the road was blocked by the pilot. It was like that scene in Star Wars with the hoverbikes in the woods. At least, until A pulled over. We could smell the brakes, and discovered the rims were hot to the touch.

A: We should probably stop a minute and let the rims cool do—
tire: psssssssssss

The tube was old anyway. Just as well we switch it out for a new one.

A: [changes tube and begins reinflating]
me: Do you hear that?
tire: pssssssssssss
us: shit.

Ok, we'll check for glass and put some electrical tape over the rim strip on the wheel. Maybe we melted the rim strip a bit.

A: [changes tube and begins reinflating]
me: [patches other tube]
tire: psssssssssss
us: shit.

Four patches and many curses later, we were out of light, tubes, and patience. We flagged down a passing van, owned by the wife of the co-inventor of some Specialized part, and big enough to fit the bike in (phew!) and got a ride to the B&B.

The two restaurants in town weren't all that exciting, so we went to the grocery store and stepped up to the deli counter.

us: Two 'treehugger' sandwiches please⁴ =D
counter lady: We're out of hummus, so I can't make you that.
us: Oh that's fine, just put on some mozzarella.
cl: Out of that too. You'll have to choose a meat sandwich.
us: Well what about some other cheese?
cl: You see, the hummus is supposed to take the place of the meat. Without that, the sandwich is no good.
us: What if we told you we ate pork for lunch?
cl: [satisfied that she wasn't about to help some vegetarians] Two pepper jack treehuggers, comin' right up!

And so our heroes settled down to a dinner of sandwiches and free B&B beer as they further investigated the tenaciously flatting wheel, eventually determining they needed to take it back to Santa Cruz to a bike shop in the morning. But that's a story for another day.

1. Ok, the other Tour of California is an 8-stage race, each day involving about 100 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing, and they do it way faster. But we had panniers and had to fix our own flats. But I'll get to that later.

2. Street? Avenue? You all live on the other side of the country and don't really care. It's a way to get to Skyline Drive.

3. As did the OToC, just this morning! (Other Tour of California)

4. The lunch burritos were so huge that despite the 2,000 feet of climbing we'd done since eating them, we still didn't want anything heavy for dinner.

Garden, round 2

2010-05-18T23:48:00.000-04:00

So our initial garden has all but failed. All those little seedlings never became much more than the first pair of true leaves. We planted them, but most got eaten by slugs. The basils (the 4 that made it to the planting stage) refuse to grow and refuse to die.

Exception! The garlics, sent as a housewarming (gardenwarming?) gift by KPd, are doing fabulously. If you come visit, we can eat lots of garlic.

So anyway, we gave up and bought starter plants from OSH. Imagine it as something of a 30-times-the-cost head start. So now we have some baby lettuces, tomatoes, peppers, and pole beans. Oh, and a strawberry I got from work.

We've gotten more aggressive about slugs. There are eggshells and little mini-cups of beer all over the place. It looks like we didn't quite get the idea of compost and recycling. But something else must be eating everything too, and if they're not lured by beer and afraid of eggshells and coffee grounds, then we have no idea what to do.

The pole beans have already lost 3 of 5 new plants.

This at least is helping to cement our plans to move to SF when the lease is up. And if nothing else, we'll be swimming in garlic by harvest time.

Update!

2010-04-21T01:10:00.001-04:00

We planted some plants!

This one holds garlic cloves and lettuce and spinach seeds:

Over here are some kales (if they haven't been completely eaten by snails by now), pole peas (poles to be installed later) and probably another clove or two of garlic.

In the back will be squash (one per 3 feet! We'll mix something else over there too), tomatoes and peppers, and probably some more garlic. In the front are more spinach and lettuce.

All the cardboard is a permaculture technique called 'lasagna gardening.' It's dirt (somewhat aerated, already in the garden), then compost, then cardboard, and finally mulch. The cardboard blocks the light so weeds don't invade. We had some tenacious weeds poke through our aging cardboard, so we uprooted them before planting. We kept one in a cup of water, just to see what happens. Then we made our own holes in the cardboard to plant our seeds and cloves and beans and seedlings. The garlics are already growing! So if nothing else, we'll at least have plenty of that this summer.

And here's a sunset, just for good measure:

The water is the SF bay. The Golden Gate bridge is off to the left, for reference. That's about a mile from our house.

Cottage

2010-02-02T00:03:00.000-05:00

You've all been waiting for pictures of our new place, and I was finally home on a sunny day to take some!

Kitchen. Observe awesome 40s-era stove. It likes to set off the smoke detector.

Other side of the kitchen, featuring 50s-era ugly-in-an-awesome-way table and chairs.

Bathroom. Or at least the shower curtain part.

Storage closet. Check out all that storage action!

Living room.

Office, aka the other half of the living room.

Drilling air holes in the compost bin.

Somehow I forgot to get good ones of the yard. I guess you'll all just have to come visit and see it =D

California knows how to garden

2010-01-16T00:22:00.000-05:00

So it turns out we pretty much kicked ass at finding a place and getting settled. We've already signed a lease, moved in, and furnished our cottage. It's this little in-law cottage next to the house the landlords live in. A far cry from show-up-on-trash-day, underpaid "supers" who don't actually know how to fix anything. An even farther cry from having to make seven phone calls to get the simplest thing fixed. The whole apartment hunt made me realize just how crazy NYC is when it comes to renting.

The cottage has a bedroom, kitchen, and living room, plus a pretty huge storage closet. The kitchen has this amazing 40's-era gas stove that is gorgeous. The living room will also be the study and Guest Room (hint hint). It already has a futon! We managed to take the U-Haul to a Good Will after moving our own stuff and got a whole bunch of great furniture. Even the kitchen table + chairs that looked way too brown in the store are way better now that they're not surrounded by all the other brown.

More importantly (and more new and shiny for anyone coming from NYC), we have a BACK YARD! This is what attracted us to the East Bay rather than the more familiar urban environment of the city.* We share the back yard with our landlords, but they are entirely amenable to us growing vegetables and chickens in it. It even has a hot tub. We've already taken advantage of the hot tub and probably will again when I finish this post. Seeing as it's always hot, we figure it's more efficient to jump in there and warm up than to turn on the heat in the cottage.

I haven't taken pictures yet, but I have the plan we made this afternoon for the garden:

We're not sure where the chickens will go yet, but this plan is only for half the yard anyway.

* 'the city' means San Francisco here. Weird!

Leavin' on a... train.

2010-01-11T02:25:00.000-05:00

As you must already know (unless you're a robot here to post spam in my comments), my boyfriend and I recently moved to California. As you may not know, we took the train all the way from Boston (well, two trains). Following are some of the more memorable parts of the trip.

Getting carded
Along the first leg, we stopped in Albany so that the train coming from NYC could get tacked onto the back of our Boston-originating train. We decided to use the hour and a half or so to stretch our legs and find a sandwich. This, of course, began at the bar. The bartender, not recognizing us as one of his regulars, immediately carded us. Makes sense—college town (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute). The surprising part was when my 28-year-old boyfriend was asked for a second ID, to match his bearded self. As soon as we explained that we were in on the train with time to kill, the bartender lightened up considerably. Then he and his regular customer watched hunting shows. Rock on, upstate NY.

Getting proselytized
After changing trains in Chicago (featuring a 4-hour layover that afforded us the time to have brunch with friends and wander around the city) and getting settled in our sleeper room (oooh bunk beds), we checked out the lounge car. With comfy seats facing huge windows, this is the place to spend the trip. We'd also brought some cards and poker chips (well, rolls of coins) and booze hoping to make friends. The first person we meet is, of course, Creepy Christian Dude. We're not that into talking about Jesus, and CCD wasn't that into talking about anything else, but we managed to play an awkward game of cards for a couple hours as the sun set over the snowy midwestern flats.

Getting contact-high
Included in the price of our sleeper car ticket were three meals a day in the diner car. The food was, for the most part, way better than airplane food. They even had made-to-order steak on the menu. But the diner car booths were made for 4, so at each meal we made some new friends. There were the typical Berkeley rich liberals, the Southern Republican father and probably-gay-but-maybe-hasn't-admitted-it-to-himself son, the annoyingly douchey Concordians... And then there was another father-son pair. The father was a pot grower from North of SF; the son, as far as I could tell, was just a little embarrassed by his father. It took a while to put it together—for a while I just thought the father was batshit crazy—but as soon as he mentioned that the only way to do these train trips was to make yourself a giant pot brownie, it all made sense.

Getting bored
Nope, didn't happen. The scenery was gorgeous. Everything was timed so that we went through the mountains during the day. We had too many books, it turned out, because staring out the windows occupied a surprising number of hours.

Getting home
We arrived in Emeryville, California, after four days and three nights on the two trains. We retrieved our damp, collapsed checked baggage (grr) and fortunately fit all of them in one taxi to our interim apartment. And so now I live in The Golden State (wait, really, Wikipedia? That's the state's nickname? Seems kinda corny). But that's best left for another post.

Spam

2009-12-26T23:12:00.000-05:00

I deleted a post. I didn't want to, but I couldn't find a way to get rid of the spam comments on it. I will fix this once I work for Google (if I remember)... and by fix, I mean file a bug so that somebody else fixes it, most likely.

Merry Christmas! I'll see you all in California, and post more from there I promise.

Day 28

2009-11-10T14:41:00.003-05:00

I just realized that the yoga has made me far more in tune with my body over the past four weeks. This holds especially true for my diet. I feel completely different--and better--when I eat lettuce and fish before class (and I'm talking 3 or so hours before) than when I eat a mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwich. More and more, my body craves lean proteins and leafy greens. I haven't reached the point of not wanting the simple carbs at all, but they don't satisfy me the way they used to.

I was also just noticing today that my back feels strong. Really strong. Solid. It's a pretty great feeling.

I'm not sure how much I'll do the yoga past day 30. Part of me imagines 3-4 times per week. It would be really good for me. But then another part keeps thinking about all the other things I want to do more--rock climbing, maybe some dancing, maybe even see if I can learn to enjoy running. I do hope to keep this new appreciation for healthy eating. I just wish salad greens weren't on their way out of season in this area.

Halfway! Also, climate change

2009-10-28T23:32:00.002-04:00

This evening I attended my 16th class of 30, so I'm a bit more than halfway. Apparently it's normal that I'm sweating way more than I used to: my body is getting better at cooling itself off. I think today I also was still digesting lunch, creating more heat inside my body. I just wish it didn't make me slide around on the rug so much.

So there's been a lot of talk about the Global Warming/Global Cooling section of the Super Freakonomics. Most recently, Jon Stewart completely botched an interview with him. Thanks, bsom, for pointing this out first.

A summary: Super Freakonomics takes the fact of global warming--that the Earth is getting warmer. It doesn't question that this is due to human actions, like burning coal for power. But what the book does then is propose that rather than cutting carbon emissions, we could--and even should--just do things like make clouds to block the sun and thus cool down the earth. He then implies that this will get us over the hump until we figure out some other cool science-y way to fix the climate! Cool! (No pun intended.)

Levitt's first mistake is to jump to the most talked-about conclusion of the majority of climatologists: the world is getting warmer due to carbon output. He doesn't question this. But this focus on the single fact of global warming, with no regard for the other pieces of out of control carbon and methane emissions, is a wholly irresponsible way to approach the problem.

Imagine global warming as the Earth's fever in response to the disease of human industry digging up all of its stored carbon and spewing it back into the atmosphere. Now, if a person has a fever, two things are true: something is causing the fever (the fever does not cause itself), and the fever is probably not the entire problem.

In the case of the Earth, the warming atmosphere is not the only problem. The increased carbon levels are causing a whole host of problems. Scary, awful problems. For one, the ocean is absorbing some of this carbon from the atmosphere. This is causing the oceans to go acidic. Acidic oceans eat away at exo- and endo-skeletons of fish. Lobster shells will get softer, eventually becoming useless. The same will happen to tuna skeletons. With enough carbon in the oceans, we'll have nothing left but jellyfish. For another, once the atmospheric carbon levels reach a certain point (I think it's carbon, and not temperature), trees will start being carbon-positive instead of carbon-negative, and no longer be helpful.

So Levitt is looking at one specific problem, and essentially treating that one symptom. Going back to my metaphor, it's like having tuberculosis and treating it with cough syrup. It's not just Steven Levitt, and now Jon Stewart, who don't get it. Many, many people would love to—and many, many do—believe that technology will save us. Well, some technologies can help, but those include things like fluorescent lights and wind turbines that will help us reduce our emissions.

When it comes to the Earth, it's possible that we will have to turn to massive geo-engineering projects to cope. But we still need to cut down on the root problem—greenhouse gas emissions—if we're ever going to survive this with any semblance of the life we know now. And most people, and even more corporations (percentage-wise at least), won't do it unless forced.

Day 5-13

2009-10-25T19:01:00.002-04:00

As Doyle pointed out, it's been a while since an update.

I just finished my lucky-number-13th class, and first back in the studio in NY where I go. Yesterday and the day before were up in Boston area studios, including one that my old yoga, and before that dance, teacher came to with me.

Last week I was weary. Just really worn out. But I think I've gotten over it, and yesterday's class was especially good. It was also with an especially experienced, respected teacher. And I was right in front so I got lots of helpful comments and corrections. After a really rough 6:30am class on Thursday, it was nice to have such a rewarding class on Saturday.

Day 2, 3, 4

2009-10-17T16:17:00.001-04:00

So I've been doing fine with the yoga, but not with the blogging about it. No worries, y'all would be bored with daily "today I got a really deep camel" or whatever. The second class was a bit tougher, but part of that was mental because I knew I had swim class afterward. Day three was great--I thought I'd be tired, because my legs were feeling weary after two days in a row plus painting plus swimming, but then it was great. I balanced better than most days and felt really good. Yesterday, day 4, I both sweat way more than usual--there was literally a puddle on my mat; I was worried I would drown during the posture that involves putting your face flat down on the mat--and I also had to pee a lot. Could I have drunk too much water? Doubtful, but oh man it was hard work.

About to head off to Day 5. Already looking forward to eating dinner afterward =)

Day 1

2009-10-13T22:24:00.002-04:00

First class! 9am this morning. I'm always a bit stiffer for the morning classes. Maybe that'll get better after 30 days in a row--probably majority morning classes no less. I'll see how the long-term goes as it becomes long. For now, I'm just getting used to planning my days around the classes, and vice versa.

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday!

2009-10-12T00:16:00.002-04:00

After years of my on-again off-again relationship with Bikram Yoga (I'm sorry yoga, I didn't mean to be distant, life just got in the way, y'know?), I've decided I'm going to suck it up and do the 30 day challenge already. 30 classes, 30 days.

Tomorrow is my day to get some healthy food back in my body after PPP, and mentally prepare and all that. Then Tuesday is Day One. I'm also going to blog about it. I'll try to keep the posts interesting to non-Bikramophiles, as that's my main audience. But I can't do all the classes in one studio, so I probably won't even be eligible for the free month you usually get for completing the challenge.

I just went to my first class back after about three months away from it. It felt amazing, and I had one of those stellar first-day-back-in-a-while classes (no idea why that happens). And now I'm all kinds of sore, but I always liked that weary soreness that comes from a really good workout. By the end of the month, I won't be feeling that at all! But I'll hopefully be feeling all kinds of energy and health and good nights' sleeps.

Fall

2009-09-08T14:53:00.002-04:00

With apologies to bsom.

I like fall. The air is clean and crisp; there's still that association left over from the school calendar of new beginnings (new classes, new notebooks, etc.); the colors and clothes are by far the most awesome. There is also, of course, PPP, but that'll have to wait for another post. This one is about autumn in general, and specifically my last one.

I spent the past week riding my bike around New England. The region is, of course, known for its fall foliage. Only the very first few trees have started changing, but the air is already cool and school has begun (between snow and swine flu, they need to make sure they'll have enough time next spring to extend the school year if needed). The riding weather was perfect for all but one day, and that one day happened at just the right time, as it persuaded me to spend an extra day in North Adams and really look around at Mass MoCA.

This year has been pretty cool throughout. We've had very little unbearably hot weather in NYC. The same went for New England (though apparently the ocean up and down the eastern seaboard has had very high temperatures this summer). So despite the trip finishing before Labor Day, it felt like early fall.

And now Labor Day has passed and even NYU has begun again. I only have one class this year, and this fall is one of preparing to move to a new city. It's also one of saying goodbye to the northeastern four-season climate. San Francisco Bay is more of a wet/dry season place, and certainly has nothing resembling a New England fall. Lucky for me, it's the perfect weather for fall clothes and layering.

I'll be doing various things with the rest of my time--visiting people I haven't seen in too long; taking this last opportunity I'll have for a good long while to do something unrelated to my career (I'm currently thinking farming); thinking about and planning for the move. I should apply for some jobs too.

Get Better Gabe!

2009-08-20T16:11:00.003-04:00

Author's Note: I usually try to keep things light on here, but something sad and important happened and I have to tell the Internet about it.

As a cyclist, one is reminded every day that the streets can be hazardous. Pot-holes threaten to do anything from jar your wrists a bit to untrue your wheel to cause a bone-breaking crash. Drivers are often rude and/or clueless. It's just part of riding on top of a two-wheeled device in a country build around four-wheeled, walled vehicles. But it keeps us in shape and gets us sunlight and endorphins and is overall worth whatever risks and annoyances we may face.

And yet, every once in a while, something devastating happens. A week ago, my friend Gabe, a fellow NYC cyclist, was in a pretty serious collision with a car out in San Francisco. Details of the accident are still on their way through the SFPD bureaucracy, but they're less important at this stage. What we do know is that Gabe took a pretty bad hit. He's in the hospital now, in the capable hands of many doctors, family by his side. And he's got over a hundred people back in NYC pulling for him and waiting for scraps of good news to come in. The news is slow, as is typical with these sorts of injuries.

News like this does not make me fear cycling. It makes me angry, and sad, and more likely to tell friends to wear their helmets (Gabe was wearing his). But it does not make me afraid to ride around the city. If anything, it reminds me how important it is to do what I love, and to enjoy the sunshine—even in muggy New York August afternoons. We're all pulling for Gabe. And we're all out on our bikes, reminding cars with our very presence to share the road.

To follow Gabe's progress, go to GetBetterGabe.com. To make a donation to help Gabe's family cover medical expenses, rent on the room they've sublet in SF, and plane tickets, use this PayPal link: http://bit.ly/qs555.

Flickr-famous

2009-07-16T17:02:00.002-04:00

Hm, didn't realize the translator dealie would try to auto-translate my title into... um... Urdu? Well, hopefully it won't do that all the time.

Check me out, I'm on the internets!

from Bike Commuters set.

summer!

2009-07-01T21:09:00.002-04:00

Summer has finally... um... sprummered in New York. It's warm enough to wear a t-shirt and the weather is now a pretty constant chance of thunderstorms (rather than constant it's-absolutely-going-to-rain-don't-even-bother-drying-off-after-you-shower-this-morning, like it was for all of June). With this comes... the beach! This may be my most beachy summer yet—between Long Beach LI for the 4th of July, Cape May for Girls' Weekend, and Cape Cod for A's family reunion, I'll have hit the trifecta of weekend getaways in the Northeast. Too bad I'm a wimp about water and it's not yet September, and thus I have yet to get wet past my knees. But I've gotten plenty of sand and sun, so I'd say it's been a success.

Besides the beach, the summer has held a lot of computering. It's been good, especially with the nice window at my desk and the balcony outside the cafeteria so I don't become a pasty shut-in during the week.

Also, some things have happened in the world. I'm not sure what to make of Cheney's secret knowledge yet, and I'm still waiting for whatever dirt made Palin resign to come to light. There had better be some, and at this point it had better be good.

It's that time again...

2009-06-27T20:40:00.002-04:00

bsom has once again removed me from his blog links, meaning it's been far too long since I posted. I guess lots of big serious life stuff has been happening, which seems a bit too heavy for a blog. Also I forget a lot.

So here's my shoddy attempt at summarizing, somewhat sarcastically and/or sardonically, these big serious life! things that have distracted me. As per usual, I'll use my acclaimed bullet-point style.

Getting a Master's Degree!
I've certainly posted since starting my Master's, but I'm not sure if I've talked about it. Rather than getting really fascinated by the plethora of fascinating but ultimately economically useless subject matter (Politics of Food in Film!), I went to school with a career in mind. It just sort of happened. So I'm learning how to be a computer scientist. It is the family trade, after all.
Getting an internship!
I'm working at Google for the summer. I have a magnetic ID badge and everthing. It even came with a leash! They feed us and provide infinite snacks (well, they never have the yogurt I like... I know I know, first world problemz). The toilets even flush themselves--and not while I'm still sitting on them! It's pretty much insane. And it's halfway over.
Moving in with my boyfriend!
In the proud tradition begun by KPd and TtQ, this actually happened somewhat gradually, as I decided that I liked his place better than mine. And then my lease ran out and I failed to find a sublet, and here I am. He's already packing to leave, as this only bought me a month and a half before his lease is up too.
Moving across the country!
Also with my boyfriend. He's going in August to start a degree; I'm joining him in January after I finish mine. It's big, and exciting, and a little scary. If I'm really lucky, this internship will turn into a job. If it doesn't, I'll still have all of Silicon Valley to look around for one. We hope to have a garden and a garage full of bikes somewhere in the East Bay. After sharing a studio for the past two weeks, I'm also hoping to have at least 1.5 bathrooms, but that somehow still sounds way too grown-up for me.

Hoping at least somebody subsrcribes to this on an RSS reader so it isn't doomed to oblivion,
~aerob

Fun with Cloning!

2008-11-25T14:45:00.002-05:00

So Slate has an article (as do other newsplaces) about whether we should clone a neanderthal. This idea is most excellent.

Not that I think we should. I like the idea because there's so much to consider! On the one hand, we could really truly find out (to the degree that the scientists are confident they didn't fuck up the clone) whether neanderthals could talk and what they looked like walking around and stuff.

On the other hand, the poor thing would be nothing more than a science experiment and nobody at all would know how to properly parent it. There is no neanderthal Dr. Spock to consult.

On the other other hand, we all remember the hilarity that resulted from a similar experiment in Encino Man. Maybe if we include Pauly Shore in the process it would be ok.

But basically every argument for doing this makes it feel more cruel to the resulting neanderthal. Nobody wants their whole life to be some science fair project.

There's your jumping off point. I wish this could be a Campus Center lunch table discussion, but alas those days are behind me. Please, instead, discuss via comments.

::Looks left::

2008-11-03T21:34:00.002-05:00

Woah, my sidebar changed! Now it has a bunch of easy-to-add widgets with things like who follows my blog, whose blogs i follow, and pictures from my it's-been-a-while Flickr page. Basically I like playing with layouts so when Google/Blogger made it easy, I had to try. As soon as they release a "Whose Souls You Own" widget I'll add that one too.

KPd, I'm not sure how I can add myself as a follower of your blog, but if you add the Followers widget (ok there must be a better name for that) I'll try to figure out how to put myself on the list.

Oh also, bsom, you now owe me a link, by your I-link-your-blog-you-link-mine rule =D

So anyway, who's giddy about this election? It's like the night before a first date. I'm mostly excited but a little bit nervous (currently 1.9% nervous¹). Tomorrow I'll prepare (vote!), put on a special outfit (i'm hoping to find an Obama t-shirt for sale on the street somewhere) and then get increasingly giddy as the day wears on until at last, following office hours with Professor Google, I'll meet my next president. If I'm lucky, he'll be the man of my dreams—or at least good enough for the next four to eight years. And then, after what I now hope is a perfect evening, I'll finally drop this metaphor.

So Vote! Vote Obama! And if you're a New York State voter, vote Obama via the Working Families Party and the rest of the Working Families Party-endorsed candidates in Row E. Happy lever-pulling!

_{1. Nate Silver, you owe me a link now too!}

Things that are ridiculous

2008-10-25T00:16:00.002-04:00

I don't like Sarah Palin. She stands for many, many things I disagree with. She calls me, and everybody at all like me in any way (live in the same city; have the same education level; share any of the same opinions) elitist and anti-American. She doesn't trust me to make my own decisions about what to do with my body.

That said, she doesn't deserve a lot of the criticism that she receives. The latest in this series of undeserved panning has been this business about her clothing. It's one thing for Cindy McCain to have paid over a quarter of a million dollars on one outfit. But I'm not surprised at all that a woman so much in the public eye would have paid $150,000 in a month on clothing. It's been, say 45 days. That's $3,000 per day, or probably about $2,500 per appearance. That's about what a fancy suit costs.

Men can get away with wearing the same two or three $2,500 suits for months on end. As long as they have enough ties to switch in, they're good to go. Women's clothing—even women's suits—come in all kids of fancy colors and styles. And somebody is going to notice at some point along the way if she's wearing the same few suits over and over, or if she's wearing sub-par clothing. Sarah Palin did not create the world that expects women to be pretty and perfect all the time, but she must live in it, and she must do so under severe media scrutiny—more than any other vice presidential candidate, I dare say.

This election cycle brings a set of issues more important than many that have faced this country in a long time. There's a financial crisis; we're stuck in a quagmire¹ in Iraq and are losing ground in Afghanistan; we're about to see a sea change in the United States' position in the world. Governor Palin is not ready to face any of these challenges. Her wardrobe has nothing to do with this.

Yes. Please. Criticize Sarah Palin. But do it for the right reasons. She's wrong about choice. She's wrong about international relations. She's wrong about health care. She's wrong about offshore drilling. Name an issue, she's probably wrong about it. Fashion is the last thing that matters in this election. The anti-elitism, while proven hypocritical by this whole designer clothing thing, is still only tangential to the core problem with the rabid anti-elitism in the Republican party. So please, leave Sarah Palin alone when it comes to her latest outfit and dig into her politics.

_{1. Yes. I said it. Quagmire.}

What the hell, Wall Street?

2008-09-25T12:03:00.002-04:00

Hokay. Here's how I understand this financial crisis:

A bunch of people wanted to buy houses. They couldn't afford mortgages. But they really wanted those houses! So they applied for loans anyway.

A bunch of fly-by-night lenders approved the loans, either knowing full-well that the borrowers didn't have the income to pay them off, or not even bothering to look into the matter.

A bunch of real banks/lenders bought these loans, not bothering to look into where they came from, who owed the money... Essentially they had to clue what they were buying, and didn't bother to look closely at who was doing the selling.

Lots of these home "owners" couldn't pay off their mortgages. So instead of loans, the banks owned a bunch of houses. Easy enough--just sell them again! There's a housing boom!

... No, there isn't. Not when this many houses are being foreclosed all around. It's pretty much a housing bust. Good luck getting even half of what that loan was worth.

So now all these major banks and lenders are SOL because they didn't bother looking at what they were spending oodles of money on.

But not to worry! The government will bail you out! We love welfare! Especially when it's going to a bunch of rich bankers who should have been smarter than to buy things they had no knowledge of.

So now $5,000 of every American's money is about to go toward these idiots who got themselves into this mess in the first place.

This is essentially what would happen if you took how things ought to work and flipped it upside-down. The free market doesn't work if it gets bailed out every time it makes huge mistakes. This should be a never-work-in-this-town-again situation, not a poor-fannie-mae-we-got-your-back situation. Things are gonna suck for a few years because of this debacle, no matter what, but taxpayers already in up to their ears in military spending shouldn't have to bail out a bunch of huge corporations on top of it.

like the "new" cars in Maine...

2008-07-21T15:04:00.001-04:00

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks

i'm glad somebody else is noticing this.

Summer storms

2008-06-23T14:04:00.002-04:00

So yesterday, A. and I went to the Clearwater Folk Festival in Croton Point Park in Westchester. It's only about 25 miles, so we biked up. I also had packed my multitool, and therefore couldn't switch my pedals, so we did the ride on fixed gears.

First we stopped up by Washington Heights for some diner breakfast. Mmm.... grapefruit juice that's really pink lemonade from a powder, and a spinach-and-american omelette instead of spinach-and-feta. Oh well.

Those hills were tough, but great! I only had the guts to unclip once on the downhill. Then the pedals were going way too fast to catch up with them until halfway up the uphill. So after that I just spun really fast.

Then it started to drizzle.

Then it started to rain.

I made up a song about rain, and how great it was, because it was hot so it was nice to get wet.

Then it rained more.

I got sick of my song.

We stopped under a gas station pavilion to wait out the storm for a bit and have some gatorade. We were getting close.

We caught up with the storm just before we got to Croton and to the festival. Yay!

We located the Time's Up! tent and valet-parked our bikes. Then we wandered around a bit, only to discover that we'd missed Pete Seeger and the rest of the performances were rained out. Oh well.

So we explored until we found a bar serving burgers and beer. Then we found the Croton Reservoir, with its awesome dam, and explored around there a bit. Then back to Croton to hop on MetroNorth and come home. Not the day we'd planned, but overall pretty awesome.

i'm free!

2008-05-08T15:16:00.001-04:00

no more trials today. now i get a paper that, if i don't lose it, keeps me out of jury duty for the next 8 years. too bad i'm not the greatest at not losing pieces of paper. in other news, a NY congressman fathered a child with his mistress. They have MSNBC on the tv's.

who's bright idea was it to start my last name with an R? they're releasing us in alphabetical order. jerks.

i am le tired. maybe i'll have a nap.

still not on an actual jury...

2008-05-08T14:47:00.001-04:00

just sitting in the waiting room. they've called all of 25 names; slow day at the courts i guess.

but i did manage to escape annoying-won't-shut-up-kinda-creepy dude. i made a getaway at lunch! then hid in a different corner of the room. it was pretty harrowing.

How to fill out a form

2008-05-08T09:56:00.001-04:00

Apparently, jurors have trouble filling out forms. The NYS court system seems to think this process needs to be explained at least four times: once on the form, once when you arrive, once after the movie, and again right after that just for good measure. i'm not sure i would trust somebody who doesn't know how to fill out their employment information on a form to be on my jury.

A history of Jury Duty: brought to you by 1992

2008-05-08T09:16:00.001-04:00

It's the 'make you feel better about being here' video portion of the morning! Highlights:

A bunch of medieval people just threw a dude into the water.

Its Ed Brantley of 60 Minutes! And some 90's-tastic generic hopeful music!

"... and, what is this service called jury duty anyway?"

"The romans threw out [the idea of the jury] and substituted it with judges and [something]..." [picture of Jesus!] Nothing like religious guilt to make people want to serve on jury duty. Especially that Hasid next to me--that Jesus thing will really get him into it.

Now it's Dianne Sawyer! I bet the South Dakota court doesn't have this kind of star power for their jury duty video.

And now for a who's-who of the courtroom, featuring "the opposite of the stereotypical person for each job!":

- the black female judge!

- the white male stenographer!

- the racially ambiguous cops!

- the black dude and white woman lawyers (hey, it's just like the democratic primary!)

"If you are excused during [jury selection] it is in no way a reflection on your intelligence or integrity." ... Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they try to dismiss the really smart people.

Woah. it's a dude with that shaved-on-the-bottom, ponytail-on-the-top haircut from middle school.

Jury duty wooo!

2008-05-08T08:51:00.001-04:00

Maybe people wouldn't hate it so much if they got to sleep later. 8:30? That's like high school early.

... For real this time

2008-05-08T02:09:00.001-04:00

So due to blogger being blocked by the brooklyn supreme court, and to my postponing jury duty, my little liveblogging experiment failed. But no worry! I'll try again tomorrow, with the awesome post-by-email function! I'll also be madly trying to finish my last homeworks of the semester, so we'll see just how much of each gets done. Oh, also I should probably be juring or whatever.

But I have high hopes. So see y'all tomorrow! Er... later today! Word.

ooh i need a badass EVENT TITLE

2008-04-21T13:56:00.004-04:00

holy carp! i fell behind. though not as behind as i am on my homework, so you can't be too angry.

to make it up to you, this wednesday, the 23rd of april (hey, that's today! ... technically), i'll be...

:::LIVE BLOGGING FROM JURY DUTY:::

so, if you're the sort of person who checks your friends blogs from work, via rss feed or by clicking the reload button every 5 minutes, boy are you in for a treat!

disclaimers: there may be very little to post about. and if i get a really good idea for how to next debug my homework, there may be some dead air for a bit. or perhaps a clogging of the tubes. but i hear the NYC courts have very good wireless, so that part shouldn't be a problem.

my very own randall's island adventure

2008-03-24T23:30:00.002-04:00

so i know a number of people who've gotten lost on randall's island. this is just what happens when you ride a bike and have to get between upper manhattan, queens, and/or the bronx. so whoever's experienced this rite of passage for themselves will know this story already.

so i was going from harlem to astoria. looking at the map, it was just so much faster to take the triborough than to ride all the way down to the queensboro and back up. and i'd taken that route twice already in the other direction, how hard could it be?

so i set out. found the manhattan side of the bridge NO PROBLEM. i RULE! i just had to remember how to do the rest of it. luckily, at the bottom of the bridge was a sign directing me that queens was to the left. RAWK!

unfortunately, this sign was intended for cars. before i knew it, but not until it was too late to turn back, i was on a highway onramp! oh carp! then i was on the shoulder of a major highway. there's an experience i don't need to repeat. EVER.

but lo! what should appear but a separated pedestrian/bike path! i hopped the cement divider and quickly discovered that this path has been closed for a long time. no matter, i can handle a little trash! and debris! and construction cones... and... broom handles...

what i can't handle is when the path ends and empties back onto the highway. at this point i'm starting to remember DB and NJ's story of their heroic journey from the bronx back to queens last year sometime. so like our motto in ireland ('cows have been here!' meaning, there's cow poop on these rocks so they must be navigable), the thought 'bikes have been here!' was at least a little comforting. that and the realization that a path that has an end must also have a beginning. ...and the hope that that beginning is not a 20 foot drop into sewage or something.

i turn around, re-braving the broom handles, construction cones, debris, and trash, and find my way to the beginning of the path. and it begins at a closed chainlink fence. but through the chanlink fence is a parking lot where i've been before! hoorah!

i find a spot from which to drop my bike (::sniff::), then go and climb over the fence. i retrieve my bike and it seems to have no permanent damage (yay IRO! so tough!).

oh! i forgot! before hopping the fence, there were some very seedy characters driving and running around the parking lot. they were probably just fucking around. but in the dark, with my already-adrenalized mind, i decided to duck in case they were committing some crime for which the only kind of witness they needed was a dead witness. nobody wants to be the next true story an episode of law and order is based on. so i ducked. they left and didn't seem to notice me.

anyhoo, i got over the fence, retrieved my bike, and continued on my merry way. i found the road down the island—the bike safe one!—and saw, in the distance, a blinky light! i followed the other bike, trying to be as un-creepy about it as possible, until it turned on to the queens triboro bike path.

smooth sailing (well, besides those pesky stairs that aren't very well marked and that, luckily, i knew were there) all the way into queens. success!

in which i return to blogging

2008-03-03T23:53:00.003-05:00

if all goes well¹, this post marks my triumphant return to the blogotubes.

a lot has happened in the six or so months since my last post (and, i admit, republished-comic-as-blog-post is weak. even if the comic itself spoke to me on a deep personal level. so maybe let's say the seven or so months since my last post). what are these lots of things, you ask? let's see...

::time-travel-indicating squiggly lines::
(     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (
)     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )
(     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (
)     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )
(     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (
)     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )
(     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (
)     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )
(     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (
)     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )
(     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (
)     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )
(     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (
)     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )
(     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (     (
)     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )     )
::/time-travel-indicating squiggly lines::

i got hit by a car
some official vehicle made a right hand turn into where i was riding my bike. neither i nor my bike was badly hurt, but mom replaced my helmet just in case. bastard never sent me his insurance info.
i quit my job
no more soul-sucking no-appreciation advertising work for me! i'm entering the wonderful world of student loan debt. living off of loans entirely, until i hopefully find the elusive paid internship this summer, and then again until i hopefully acquire the even more elusive google summer internship next summer², i will soon be a master of computer science.
i started school
see above.
election 2008
... continued. granted, i hadn't really said much, or anything, about it. but according to jon stewart, the gloves came off last january. then they came off this january. how many pairs of gloves are hillary and barack wearing, exactly? i'm so ready for this primary season to be over.
writers' strike
proving that reality television can hold the networks over for quite a long time. and that jon stewart and stephen colbert aren't half bad at ad-libbing.
BAND CAMP!
in which a bunch of dirty queer anarchist punks go up to maine for an extended weekend of lounging around in the woods by a lake. then we go to the beehive collective where we explode from all the mutual crushes, and from the awesome power of the megaflute.
lots more biking
including a 95-mile century³, getting lost in queens at least 3 times, riding into a whole nother state (jersey!), riding around in a whole nother city (philly!), and getting 5th girl at cranksgiving, my second real alleycat. resulting in losing so much weight i started to wonder if i eat enough⁴.
a wedding on the beach
not my wedding, silly! my cousin sarah. there was even a rainbow.
a wedding on a ranch
still not my wedding. stop that. this was my cousin annelisa. it even had barbecue, and flashy-light wine glasses. and i wore my cowboy boots. and at least 3 people brought up my wedding and when will that happen and what will it be like and blah blah blah, which is just so much fun when you're single and 25.
everyone took their links to my blog off of their blogs
well, everyone who still blogs. i'ma have to send this out to them special delivery.

that's it for now! maybe i'll explain the above picture next week! who knows?

1. read: if i don't just forget this grand plan a week from now. this plan is about one post per week, starting with this one.
2. any help you, dear reader, can give me in this endeavor will be much appreciated.
3. i invented the 95-mile century, biotch.
4. don't worry, i'm right smack in the middle of the healthy BMI range.

omg

2007-06-18T00:39:00.000-04:00

it's me!

... right down to the rollover caption.

_{i'm such a nerd}

Road Rash

2007-05-13T14:23:00.000-04:00

so i got my bike about two and a half weeks ago, and already my lower legs look wrecked. it wasn't until the shower yesterday that i even noticed most of the bruises and minor scrapes, so i have no idea where they came from. but the latest, and worst, i mostly recall. they're quite impressively embarrassing:

- thursday, on the way from the office to time's up, cab tried to cut me off or something and somehow in trying to stop/swerve in knocked my shin into the pedal and scraped it up. it's already scabby, no worries.
- today, prospect park. on the way up that big hill before grand army plaza. standing up on the pedals (i don't shift, except when the bike does it for me, but then it only goes into a higher gear). leaned too far on the handlebars, just for shits and giggles, and lost my balance and went down on my left leg/elbow. largest bruise was to my ego, though the scrapes on my left leg and the road rash on the elbow are fairly badass.

somehow in the shower afterward, i managed to get all the chain grease off my legs. i think it was the body wash with scrubby gloves; must have had the same effect as lava soap what with the super exfoliating action!

speaking of bikes:

RMO plays the Bike Film Fest, Friday night at Anthology Film Archives (2nd ave and 2nd st. manhattan). y'alls should come.

blog post!

2007-04-21T22:16:00.000-04:00

yeah, it's been a while, i know. what can i say? i've been busy. doing, what? you ask...

mostly band. which it looks like i've already posted about. around st. patrick's day, we had 7 gigs (and one practice) in 8 days. we've recorded twice. i got a flute on borrow, which i've been re-learning. we have two gigs next weekend, you should come:

Rising Tide Action Tour
Playing before Critical Mass on Friday the 26th, at Union Square Park, for a roving educational group teaching the world about global warming.
A28: Day of Action to Impeach Bush
Playing in Tompkins Square Park while you write your Congresspeople telling them to impeach Bush.

In other news, I'm applying to grad school. Like, woah. Computer Science at NYU, full time, is what I hope to be doing this fall. so, i have to finish that application (don't worry, it's not due till the 1st of june).

Also, it's spring. woot!

The Soundtrack to the Revolution

2007-02-01T10:01:00.001-05:00

The Soundtrack to the Revolution, originally uploaded by dcfox.

Says the photo poster:

One of the highlights of an amazing day.
The Rude Mechanical Orchestra hail from Brooklyn. They play in a spirited manner, have a terrific repertoire and snazzy uniforms.
I couldn't help dancing. What more could you ask?

werd.

Joke or No Joke?

2007-01-24T11:40:00.000-05:00

Joke:

I mean, come on. For real?
Candles that look like cock and balls
"To get into heaven, there's no back door"

No Joke:

Does Christian Rock really use the [other] 'F' word?
Wouldn't put it bast the Christian Fundamentalists...

Joke: "Righteous men, get on your knees"

No Joke: Check out those outfits, with all the pastels

Joke: Check out those outfits, with all the pastels...

No Joke: And the dewey light everywhere...

Joke: And the dewey light everywhere...

No Joke: The website looks legit

Joke: ... except that it lists Cyndi Lauper as a "Safe Band"

No Joke: Maybe Cyndi Lauper is "Safe"

Joke: On her latest album she duets with "Gay Band" Ani DiFranco

No Joke: They probably just didn't do their homework. It also lists both 'Indigo Girls' and 'The Indigo Girls.' I mean, there's a lot of non-Christian Rock in the world...

Verdict

I'm gonna go with a tentative Joke. But there's a lot I just wouldn't put past the Christian Fundamentalists.

Thoughts?

Things that made me happy this weekend

2006-12-17T23:10:00.000-05:00

sitting in the living room with tara enjoying the christmas tree
getting my hair cut (it's not the best ever, but for a growing-it-out cut it is good)
the onion holiday party
5 orders of steamed juicy pork buns
getting the better part of my christmas shopping done

totally rad

2006-12-12T20:47:00.000-05:00

so this past weekend, with the help of mattio, i realized just how non-radical my life got lately. mostly i blame having too much work to have the energy to care about anything. work is crazy because it's advertising. thus, i blame capitalism. it all comes full circle. or... something.

i guess it really started with last week being a crappy one work-wise. so that's where i was coming from.

RudeMO

friday night i went to see the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, NYC's radical street band that i was going to join over the summer. i failed to do so before work became crazy again (hm, i sense a theme), so now the goal is january. but it turns out scarlisle is in the RMO, as is mattio's roommate ricky, whom i'd met at bsom's birthday party, and with whom i'd discussed the RMO, which he was joining at the time (again, full circle. another theme). this makes mattio and myself groupies, apparently. well, that and the part where we went and hung out while they all warmed up. so then we headed over and watched Drunkest Band Ever play the end of their set, then ask where the Infernal Noise Brigade was (speaking of which, did y'alls know they broke up? back in july), before continuing to play so that they had to be cut off so RudeMO could take the stage.

then, they played Bella Ciao! then they played Decepticon, complete with the dance! and awesome new lyrics! about bombs! and motherfucking wargames! i'm so "trying out" for this band as soon as possible.

Freegan Bike Workshop

so then on saturday, mattio showed me the Freegan Bike Workshop. it's this warehouse-type space full of clothes, in the back, and found bike parts in the front. so we set about building me a bike. it was mostly not very successful, but i got my hands all greasy and learned a couple of things about bicycles. one day we'll make it back and finish me one. it'll be pretty awesomely not matching. then i can cover it with stickers and such, perhaps.

so maybe i should ask for a bicycle helmet for christmas (hint hint ::cough:: mom ::cough::), the kind that's safer than my old one as wearing a helmet does increase one's chances of getting hit by a car (but it also increases your chances of surviving said collision, and increases my chances of feeling safe and secure). oh and an NYC-sized lock. but not the kind that could be picked with a bic pen. do they still sell those?

so now i need to do all of my christmas shopping, and i'm not in a very consumerist mood. and, i'm still busy with work (work theme, and full circle theme, making a theme theme, which just caused this post to implode)

Adventures in Showering

2006-10-10T22:56:00.000-04:00

So it was a Saturday, not too long ago, when VJR decided to celebrate her birthday. The birthday was also not too long ago, so this made perfect sense.

I had left the same VJR mere hours before after a trip to the knitting store (no, that wasn't supposed to rhyme). Excited about the new project and the fabulously fallish weather, I went out rollerblading. At dusk. So of course, in the fading light, I failed to notice the twig in the road and went right down. Now, I'm scrappy, so of course I got back up and finished the circuit.

Once home, I decided it would unacceptable for TQ to stay late at work. It was Saturday! So I texted her:

Dude, you'd better leave work on time. It's Saturday! I'm showering now, when I get home you'd better be here.

Then I looked at my knee, and texted TQ again:

Um, could you pick up some gauze and band-aids on the way?

I scraped up my knee 9-year-old style. And my elbow a little. I'm hoping for a righteous scar. It's been a week and the elbow is fine and the knee is totally healing. I'll keep ya posted.

So showering took a bit of time.

TQ got home and delivered the medical goods. So I bandaged up the knee before it could ooze on too much, while we watched some Prisoner (see previous post).

TQ needed to rant, so I offered to join her in the shower (ew, get your mind out of there it's dirty. The shower curtain is opaque; I was sitting on the toilet) so that she could rant and clean at the same time (ooh, time-saving!).

So I decided to further time-save, as we were already looking to be rather late, by having dinner (cereal with milk) in the bathroom with the cleaning and the ranting.

This is where the trouble started.

As per usual, there was no hot water. So TQ, covered with soap, was wet and cowering in the corner and ranting. I needed something, so I put the bowl on the top part of the toilet and got it, and when I sat back down I knocked over the bowl, breaking it and spilling cereal and milk all over the floor.

So with the bandaged and painful knee I had to somehow kneel on the floor and reach around behind the toilet to clean up broken porcelean and TQ is trying to rinse off without freezing her arse off. This part goes surprisingly smoothly.

But of course, neither of us has clean clothes. Again, we're scrappy, so this wasn't too big a problem. Bending my knee in jeans wasn't the most fun thing, but we arrived at the party with perfect timing--just as BSom was getting there too! We RULE!

The Prisoner (on DVD!)

2006-09-24T16:32:00.000-04:00

So I catsat a couple of weeks ago for Joe, and as it turns out in addition to a shit-ton of records, he has a shit-ton of DVDs, including all of The Prisoner.

The Prisoner is an acid-trip of a mystery/action/spy thriller from 1967 in which a recently-retired secret agent gets drugged and passes out only to wake up in an isolated place called The Villiage in which everyone's name is replaced with a number and there's no indication of who's who and whom to trust. It influenced such shows as Lost, and basically is awesome.

It takes lots of concentration to get what's going on, but for the most part it's episodic and you don't need to watch them in order. In fact, the DVD set I borrowed has a different order than the original air dates.

It's thick with symbolism and sometimes its clues are in the minutest of details.

I definitely recommend.

Snakes and Planes

2006-08-19T15:59:00.000-04:00

Ooh, topical!

So I flew to Norway, by way of Iceland, a couple of weeks ago. Iceland Air is the most direct one-stop flight to Norway from the States, with the added bonus of stopping in Iceland. Some may not call this so much of a bonus, considering I certainly wasn't there long enough to stray from Keflavik Airport, but now that Europe is consolidating its immigration duties that means I have an all new stamp on my passport. Woot!

A week after getting home, that whole liquid terror plot thing happened. Had my trip been a week later, or had the Republicans preemmptively exposed the plot by an extra week, those flights home would have sucked. Or they wouldn't have existed for an extra few days, which I can't say I would have minded. Check out bsom for better analysis of the terror plot propaganda.

Then this past week, the Brooklyn Bridge Park film series screened Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, a fine movie featuring planes (complete with propellers and red lines) and snakes ("Why'd it have to be snakes"), and this:

There's a big snake in the plane, Jock.
Oh, that's just my pet snake Reggie.
I hate snakes, Jock. I hate 'em.
C'mon, show a little backbone, will ya?

Possibly the best snake-on-plane dialogue ever, but do please submit your own. Just please don't ruin any new movies for me and my loyal readers until they've been out for at least a couple weeks.

In other movie news, World Trade Center opened a week or so ago, and I don't think I really want to see it. I must say I'm a little angry at Oliver Stone—if he's not careful he's going to give some pretty big ideas to the terrorists.

This is a test

2006-08-09T17:43:00.000-04:00

Yes, I'm using my blog for work. Don't ask. but do get excited.

Report: Meat Now America's No. 2 Condiment

Look! Up in the sky! I mean, on 5th Ave!

2006-07-23T16:29:00.000-04:00

I just got back from the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co., on 5th Ave in Park Slope. It. is. so. cool. I couldn't help but get a t-shirt and a map of Brooklyn and Environs. They also have paint cans full of tights and leotards, capes, wrist-talkies and other gadgets, and secret identity kits (see? serial commas are totally necessary). (And now I can't remember how to properly order an end-parentheses and a period.) It's also an after-school tutoring program for kids. So when you buy things, not only do you have to take the Superhero Pledge and put your money into a Vault, but you also are supporting a good cause. Woot woot!

Push, Fuck, or Marry

2006-07-19T13:03:00.000-04:00

(originally from the game we played on the way back from Asbury Park on Sunday)

FOXNews
Scientology
Osama bin Laden

Discuss.

seattle!

2006-06-17T10:47:00.001-04:00

Things that ruled about my trip to visit Becca in Seattle
In chronological order

Jet Blue
Not only did I get cookies *and* chips *and* the famous cheese and crackers (hm, now i'm hungry), but i also got to watch a whole marathon of ANTM. And if you don't know what that stands for, you'd probably think less of me for having watched it, so I'm not going to say. Also, parts of the Daily Show.
Seeing Becca!
I mean, duh.
Pike Place Market
Free samples, first ever Starbucks, cool retro posters, crepes... (now i'm more hungry) Awesome.
The Space Needle
I had to say it. I mean, come on. It was... tall.
Ballard
NORWEGIANS! Or, Norwegian flags. And... Indian food (ok that's it i'm getting some breakfast). And a bar with Aquavit and the Mad Magazine Game and friendly people.
The park
Coffee, Ice Cream, and lots of walking in pretty. And bunnies (cute!) and squirrels (less cute).
The thrift store
2 cool new t-shirts for $1.49.
Fado
Lots of cute boys. Good for kissing, as the pictures that have probably found there way onto his MySpace by now will attest to.
Punk Rock Diner (PUNK ROCK BEACH!)
Ok it wasn't punk-themed or anything, and it wasn't even a diner by New England standards (let alone Jersey standards), but it had waffles at 2am and every punk and goth in the city had found their way there. Also, there was a tv you could send a text message to, kind of like at the Green Day concert.

There was other awesome, but leaving was less fun. But Brooklyn is also cool, and this week included a pink gorilla suit, a birthday party, the artist formerly and currently known as Prince, and Beth and Matt. And today, soccer! And I think a haircut, to go with all my awesome new earrings.

seattle!

2006-06-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

Things that ruled about my trip to visit Becca in Seattle
In chronological order

Jet Blue
Not only did I get cookies *and* chips *and* the famous cheese and crackers (hm, now i'm hungry), but i also got to watch a whole marathon of ANTM. And if you don't know what that stands for, you'd probably think less of me for having watched it, so I'm not going to say. Also, parts of the Daily Show.
Seeing Becca!
I mean, duh.
Pike Place Market
Free samples, first ever Starbucks, cool retro posters, crepes... (now i'm more hungry) Awesome.
The Space Needle
I had to say it. I mean, come on. It was... tall.
Ballard
NORWEGIANS! Or, Norwegian flags. And... Indian food (ok that's it i'm getting some breakfast). And a bar with Aquavit and the Mad Magazine Game and friendly people.
The park
Coffee, Ice Cream, and lots of walking in pretty. And bunnies (cute!) and squirrels (less cute).
The thrift store
2 cool new t-shirts for $1.49.
Fado
Lots of cute boys. Good for kissing, as the pictures that have probably found there way onto his MySpace by now will attest to.
Punk Rock Diner (PUNK ROCK BEACH!)
Ok it wasn't punk-themed or anything, and it wasn't even a diner by New England standards (let alone Jersey standards), but it had waffles at 2am and every punk and goth in the city had found their way there. Also, there was a tv you could send a text message to, kind of like at the Green Day concert.

Best. Movie. Ever.

2006-06-05T00:51:00.000-04:00

i just saw the most amazing thing committed to film ever. Well, maybe in the past 2 3/4 years.

The preview for Pirates of the Carribbean 2. Check it out for yourself (of course, it's much better in the theater).

Just thought I'd share that with you. The rest of the site is cool too. I mean, probably. I haven't checked it out yet.

W.T.F.

2006-05-29T23:06:00.000-04:00

So according to the Washington Post, "New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves—and to be treated by the health care system—as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon. Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control." (full article here)

Wow, thank you, CDC, for reminding me that my entire purpose in life is to breed babies. Despite relentless attempts to limit the women's right to choose, I'd almost forgotten. Good thing the federal government is here to help me be the best incubator I can be. Well, aside from doing anything as ridiculous as providing affordable pre-natal care to everyone who needs it.

Perhaps the high infant mortality rate in this country (second-highest in the world, is it? Or perhaps just among industrialized countries? Whatever, it's embarrassingly bad), cited as a possible motivation for this new "guideline," has to do with the flagrant lack of health coverage. I doubt that French women are any more likely to abstain from alcohol and cigarrettes than American women just because they're pre-menopausal. But French women are much more likely to be getting all the health care they need throughout their lives, and especially throughout their pregnancies, simply because they all have access to it.

And what's this assumption that every woman might get pregnant at any moment? Obviously, if the neocons get their way and outlaw all contraception, a lot of us will be a hell of a lot more likely to. But excluding rape, I doubt many lesbian women will have any unexpected pregnancies any time soon, not to mention those who are not at all sexually active.

I'm all for promoting good health. But couching it in this "your body is a baby-machine" mentality is beyond fucked up. It is not my sole purpose in life to create more life, any more than it's every living thing's life goal to perpetuate the species. The government isn't telling men to stay away from tighty-whiteys in order to maximize their sperm count, or to shy away from alcohol themselves because it can reduce performance.

This kind of thing doesn't just piss me off. It fucking terrifies me. As Dan Savage says, it's a small step between "should" and "must," and this is a damn slippery slope.

25 is a lot of times

2006-05-29T14:11:00.000-04:00

I voted for the MLB All-Star game today! They let you vote 25 times, and usually I don't, but today I did. I thought surely it had screwed up and I'd voted way more than 25 times already, but then I got the "no you already voted enough" message, so it must have worked.

Fleet week has been a big bust. There were supposed to be many many sailors, roaming around and hitting on me and Liza. But no... Y'know, I thought the Navy wasn't involved in any desert operations, but have their numbers been depleted too? Or were they too "oh, I'm in Midtown, lalala"? The latter, probably.

Anyhoo, it's now too hot to retrieve and set up the AC. Oh irony of ironies.

Cosmo Confessions

2006-05-27T13:20:00.000-04:00

Why Cosmopolitan Magazine rules, in an awesomely trashy way:

The invention of the word "frienvy" (being envious of a friend... I thought this was just called "envy," but I guess I thought wrong.
The obligatory celebrity-gossip-couched-in-expose-on-paparazzi story, about how now such details as cold sores and "more than a few inches of space between a 'happy' couple walking together" are scrutinized endlessly. This, only a couple months after the "sure signs these celeb couples were headed for disaster" article, in which those same few inches of space were scrutinized endlessly.
Cosmo Kama Sutra, aka, how many ways can we make the same 5 sex positions look new and exciting? This month's installment: just add water.
The untold (except for every other issue ever published) secret to great sex.
The following example of decoding bad-guy language (as in, guys to actually avoid, like stalkers):

He says: "I'm gonna hit the men's room again. Three times in an hour might be a record for me."
Distilled Version: "I'm going to the men's room for the third time."
True meaning: "I use cocaine."

Ok, maybe I have a freakishly small bladder, but when I drink a few beers I have to pee at least that much, for real.

In other news, I'm thinking about grad school. Poly-sci. Better actually open that GRE book one of these days...

MayDay

2006-04-13T01:14:00.000-04:00

What could possibly bring together Democratic Candidate for Congress and the Latin Kings? What else but the May 1 Immigrant General Strike? Now, I do support all peaceful political action, and I support many of the causes of the current anti-anti-immigration movement forming in the US (ok it probably has a better name than that but it's late and I have work in the morning), but ya gotta find that a little hilarious. Other supporters include plenty of communists and socialists (like they do), plus Four Women, Kanadian Posi Kids (what does Canada have to do with this?), Liars of America, and my favorite, Brooklyn's own Church of Stop Shopping (can true Anarchists go on strike? Like, the ones already living outside the capitalist system... How do they strike, try to trade stocks for the day?).

That said, how cool would a general immigrant strike be? In the US, not that uppity France over there. As a first-generation American on one side, should I take a long lunch or something? I'll have to try to not be too protested out after A29.

You'd do better living more and commemorating less

2006-04-03T00:02:00.000-04:00

I had 3 topics to post about, and then 4, but I can't remember them... At least, not all of them. But I thought of a 5th. So, 5-[number of things in this post]=[number I could remember now].

Taxes

I did my taxes. I'm so independent! Ok, so I have yet to mail them, but they're totally printed out. TurboTax rules. Except when it sucks.

So everything was going fine, until I finished my MA return. Then TurboTax found errors. TT needed my 'PY to date'... 'Your what?' you ask. Yeah, I asked too. I ased TurboTax, I asked TurboTax Help, I even asked my dad. Nope. Eventually, I guessed, and entered a date (hey, it said date, right?). It seemed to like it, but then needed my PY from date. So I gave it another date. Totally worked. I rule!

You know you're becoming a New Yorker when...

So we were on the subway yesterday when a woman gets on acting a little odd and swinging a pair of towels around kind of like poi. She's talkin' to herself, like ya do, minding her own business... Then, she's singin' a song about shaking her ass, like ya do. Then, she pulls her pants down to show us, and slap, her naked ass. I of course looked the other way, only to see the reflection in the window, so I concentrated very hard on the subway wall. Like ya do.

What we all realized when we got off the subway was not how amazed and appalled we were by this person's behavior, but how relieved each of us was when she didn't relieve herself on the subway floor. I mean, nobody wants to be in a smelly car.

My birthday party!

Okay, maybe that wasn't one of the orignial 5. Hm... Anyhoo, it's next weekend. Woot! And the weather got warm just in time for a reprise of my infamous punch. Then I screwed up the invitation by trying to be too clever. But I think I fixed it.

The T-Shirt Book

This was definitely not one of the original 5. For those of you keeping score at home, I'm around 2.5.

Anyhoo, I found a book about awesome ways to alter t-shirts. I didn't buy it of course, but i looked through the entire thing at B&N and remembered enough that I want to get lots of awesome t-shirts and make them awesomer with scissors and thread. And maybe safety pins.

The FBI Won't Stop Calling Me

Not the real FBI. Just some telemarketers: 000-000-0000 and 800-424-something. So BSom told me I could auto-ignore the calls if I saved them, so I saved them as FBI, but then I couldn't ignore them at all because my phone's not that fancy. But, I got 13 calls between the two of them on Friday alone (I tried picking up, and both times there was actually nothing on the other end, so maybe not telemarketers but still annoying as shit). My guess is that good old TurboTax sold me out. Jerks.

Final score: 3.5 out of a possible 5

Things that rule

2006-03-11T23:09:00.000-05:00

This video
That somebody found my blog by doing an MSN search for "max fisting"
That somebody (else?) found my blog by doing an MSN search for "people in seatbelt car crash pictures"
That both of my parents are asleep on the couch in front of the news right now
Snowboarding!
Down a black diamond! (on an easy mountain, but still)

Who are these MSN searchers?

Ok. Bed. Like in that picture in the Times Square subway station.

7th ave smells like ass

2006-03-08T23:39:00.000-05:00

Or, more accurately, gas. Or new blacktop. Something icky that causes black lung, in any event.

Other news...

Shit I had like, 8 things to write about, and now I can't remember them. Hm...

Ooh, most awesome drunken injury of my life: I burned my nose. How it happened is between me and... the people who saw it happen.

Ordering in diner food rules. Especially when accompanied by a Project Runway marathon.

And speaking of fashion... I'm thinking of taking a knitting class. But like, a schmancy design knitting class. Or I'll just buy yarn and see what happens. Hmm...

Street Blood Holiday has a MySpace account. Now we're totally a legit band.

I join another group... or, club. Her Majesty's Satanic Stair Drinkers. We take the stairs up to work (on the 10th floor)... sometimes. And we're way cooler than that other stair-takers club. We're gonna have t-shirts instead of business cards, for one.

I'm snowboarding this weekend. Sweet.

The Upcoming Awesome

2006-02-18T11:26:00.000-05:00

Weekend in Middletown! Ok, I'm already here, totally pulling a JHoff. Tonight is RCart's birthday party. Woot!
Liza party next weekend?
Um... March.
My birthday party! 8th April. Be there.
My birthday! One year away from less expensive car rental...
A29. This time we'll totally stop the war. Come crash in Brooklyn! It'll be a party. We'll even have snare drum.

Girls' Night Out!

2006-02-12T13:52:00.000-05:00

IMG_1809.JPG
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

So the lovely RBrig (third from left) is visiting all the way from Seattle, and we decided we simply had to show her the best time ever to be had in NYC. Ok, so like often there was much wandering around involved, but we still managed to spend obscene amounts of money on drinks (yay New York), and meet some awesome should-be-sex-columnists. Jersey, Westchester, and Massachusetts all showed up in rare form. There was much debauchery. And much hotness. In the form of us.

Then yesterday was snowday-tastic! Soup, beer, Olympics, and board games made for a most excellent night in.

Today... sledding? Snowball fight? Staying in and trying to actually get over this cold? Who knows...

IMG_1789.JPG

2006-02-12T13:44:00.001-05:00

IMG_1789.JPG
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

IMG_1791.JPG

2006-02-12T13:44:00.000-05:00

IMG_1791.JPG
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

IMG_1793.JPG

2006-02-12T13:43:00.000-05:00

IMG_1793.JPG
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

In Which I Bitch-slap David Brooks

2006-01-08T20:34:00.000-05:00

David Brooks, in his latest assault on everything that is good in the world (ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but turnabout is fairplay), took a deeper look at online communties like MySpace, Friendster and facebook. I of course use the term deeper loosely.

According to Brooks, these sites provide an environment for twentysomethings—"highly mobile, half-teen/half-adult[s], looking for a life plan and in between the formal networks of school, career and family"—to flaunt their cleavage (in the case of girls) and, well, check out all of the cleavage (in the case of boys). The opinion piece, if one can call it that, catalogues all of the "smutty" content of these sites and only in the last two paragraphs attempts to provide any sort of analysis whatsoever. It then implies that such sites are the sole form of communication we even use. Doesn't he realize we have AIM, txt-mssging, and LIveJournal? I mean, duuuh.

But seriously. I find this entire article insulting. Brooks clearly suffers from that nearly inevitable affliction that causes a complete lack of understanding of people in generations younger than his. The article is yet another show of vicariously experiencing a less repressed culture than the author's own masquerading as a critique of said culture. Classic examples of similar behavior include white critiques of African-American culture and first-world anthropological writings about societies in the Global South.

Like everything else, this e-culture has its problems. It's a distraction, a waste of time, and a shit excuse for social contact. Facebook is elitist in that it's college-only or invite-only. It pisses me off when people use e-commenting as their sole form of communication. But few people actually do that, and those who do would probably be avoiding actual social situations even without the Interweb. But Brooks suggests that these sites have replaced all other forms of socializing. The only evidence he shows is the prevelance and popularity of these sites, as if their existence necessarily means the nonexistence of anything else.

Perhaps most insulting is Brooks's feeble attempt to appear the valiant defender of women's rights by calling out MySpace on the clear objectification of female [heterosexual or lesbian-as-male-turn-on—nothing in the article aknowledges that anything else exists] sexuality prevelant throughout the site. Ok, yes, such objectification is a problem—though not as widespread a one on MySpace as Brooks claims. But its existence in MySpace is a symptom of its existence in society overall, not a symptom of what makes young adults some socially stunted, emotionally uneducated, reason to fear for the future.

At least some good came of the article. I now have a text message on my phone from bsom that says, "Where did you go!!! I haven't seen you in a long time and I NEED to see you!!! Cause I love you!!!" Aw =D

Party!

2006-01-03T23:17:00.002-05:00

IMG_1767
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

New Year's Eve. Clockwise-ish, from bottom-left: the back of KPd's head, the back of a French guy's head, VReing (in the pink), Ariel, French guy, E-rok, French guy, French guy, Lilou

XMas Tree!

2006-01-03T23:17:00.001-05:00

IMG_1766
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

We added more lights later

JHoff

2006-01-03T23:17:00.000-05:00

IMG_1778
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

... ringing in the year 9007, apparently

TQ and BSom

2006-01-03T23:16:00.001-05:00

IMG_1777
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

P-Sal striking a pose

2006-01-03T23:16:00.000-05:00

IMG_1776
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

Sadownik and TQ

2006-01-03T23:15:00.000-05:00

IMG_1769
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

You know it was a good New Year's Eve when...

2006-01-02T03:50:00.000-05:00

you don't remember taking half the pictures on your digital camera, even though you were clearly the one who took them
you were clearly having a good time in pictures of yourself you don't remember posing for
Sadownik comes in from out of town
Lilou comes bearing cute French boys
BSom and JHoff come bearing the finishing touches to both your *amazing* playlist and your extensive selection of liquor
The neighbors come bearing 40's
Jersey comes bearing tequila
there was the wearing of many shirts
there was the wearing of many novelty items
there was, apparently, ass-slapping—of a strictly non-sketchy variety
there was no permanent damage
you find shirts in your apartment the next morning that don't belong to you, any of your roommates, or any of the people who spent the night
you wake up the next morning and want nothing more than to hydrate and watch an entire season of "Sex and the City" on DVD with your fabulous roommates

tofurkey day

2005-11-25T23:51:00.000-05:00

Now that I've moved out of my parents' house, I've joined the world of those who travel to visit their families for Thanksgiving. I cut out of work at 5:30 on Wednesday and rushed up to Penn Station, only to wait around for an hour for the train to arrive. Luckily, I had the fabulous company of one VReing for the wait and the ride.

And what a ride it was.

We squirmed our way to the head of the mob to get onto the train (the Penn Station staff really shouldn't complain about people's inability to form a line when they don't encourage one with those seatbelt-y divider things), and found two seats next to each other.

Ah, the Acela. Cleaner and faster than all the other Amtrak trains. What luxury! Altho, apparently, the bathroom was gross. I bet it still was better than the non-Acela bathrooms, and the ones on the bus, but I can't say I minded never having to find out for myself.

Anyhoo, the biggest challenge of the ride was staying awake for the whole thing. Work is hard; even a 3-day workweek wears me out. So I was just about to doze off somewhere between New London and Providence, when the train came to a halt. Once I figured out that we were nowhere near Broadway/Lafayette, I began to wonder what was wrong. But no worry! An announcement came over the PA just then, informing us that they were working on getting power back to the train. Soon, another announcement! (we're so popular, us train passengers) This time: The next power grid is fine, but the current one still has no power, and we'll let you know what we know in 15 minutes. Half an hour later... Guess what! You get two trains for the price of one! They had failed to get the power back to the wires, but another train was on the way (the one that left an hour after we did), and would pick us up.

Soon, sure enough, the next train pulled up next to us, as full as ours (over 75%). It was a harrowing journey, involving a plank and a bridge guard bearing the warning, "Only one person on the plank at a time, please." Luckily, she didn't quiz us on things like our favorite color before we could pass.

As the passengers on the quiet car (oops), we got to get on the new train first! So VReing and I and our new-found across-the-table grad-student friends found a spot with three stools and one leaning spot in the cafe car--four of the best seats left on the new train.

Train v. 2.0 was full of interesting characters, all of whom had come from Train v. 1.0 like we did. It featured:

-Drunk Guy with a Boston Accent (DGBA): double-fisting when we met him, DGBA had been imbibing since 6pm (it was now 10:45) and was slurring the hell out of his speech. Amusing, but easily angered. Finished two beers and two wines during the brief time we were perched/leaning near him.

-Smoking Man (SM): put out the cigarrette after the announcement stating that anyone caught lighting up would be kicked off of the train, causing further delays.

-Adorable Love Connection (ALC): were having the most boring conversation ever (he describing brain function and she detailing her stint of jury duty), and totally loving it. Were smitten with each other. So cute.

At long last, we arrived, in time to go home and basically crash. Everybody's ride home from the station had been waiting around as long as we had, as many had left to pick us up before we stopped in the first place. Ah, the holidays.

In other news, I've been Googled! And MSN'd! 3 Google searches and 4 MSN searches have returned this very blog as a result. Most awesome keywords: foedal and ooh. Yes, I know I misspelled foetal. I was angry about politics or something. Also, the previous links are to Google searches, when those words found my blog through MSN searches. But the former when Googled also returns me. Found by a misspelled Internet search keyword... how embarrassing!

The Onion Almost as Good as Sex, Says Exiting Employee

2005-11-16T20:00:00.000-05:00

We had yet another going away party at the office the other day. I mean, only the second since I started... One might think that our office parties would be different from the norm. One would be wrong. Mostly. But, I'll never pass up free cake. It's like that Seinfeld episode, where Elaine eats that thousand-year-old cake. In his farewell speech, the latest deserter alluded to working for the Onion nearly measuring up to some kind of unmentionable situation.

My office also features:

Writers!
Often mistaken for loafing slackers, these people appear to roam the office looking for things to do, while really producing all of that funny stuff you read on the site or in the paper (you should really read it on the site rather than in the paper tho. The site is way cooler. Mostly because that's the part I work with).

Ping-Pong!
Well, a ping-pong table. I hear it is used. Sometimes for actual ping-pong! Sometimes for Beirut. I've seen neither so far.

Improv Comedy!
Weird rehearsals... I'm sure the shows are great, but I don't tend to get out of work in time to see them.

Parties!
Ok, these tend to be at bars. Fun nonetheless, especially when they involve free beer and latkes.

iTunes!
Werd to ethernet music-sharing. The whole staff has pretty awesome selections. Except when iTunes wants passwords for purchased music. Grr.

Dogs!
... maybe. I haven't seen any yet, but if a bring-your-dog-to-work lobby forms, I'll totally join.

Beer!
Again something I haven't actually seen, but there are definitely cans in the fridge, and once I saw an empty Pabst can. Apparently nobody really cracks anything until after 6pm or so. Besides tasty soda from Joe's Cold Beverages of course.

Joe's Cold Beverages!
Cheapest snacks you'll ever find in SoHo. More hot beverages than cold, and such items as candy and chapstick.

All in all, definitely the "non-corporate work environment" advertised in some job postings on their site.

Hey aerob, why haven't you blogged in forever?

2005-11-13T22:46:00.000-05:00

New jobs are hard. Like, way hard. Sometimes they don't get easier all that quick. I work really hard. And I work a lot.

And, when I get home, the last thing I want to do is go back onto a computer.

But after a nice long weekend (we, unlike most of the world, got Veteran's Day off... but not Martin Luther King day), I can once again bear to look at my laptop. Good thing, because my desktop is not in the same room as the TV and, therefore, 'Friends' on DVD.

This weekend saw many marvelous adventures! We could have an entire montage scene based on it!

First, on Thursday night, we vegged out in front of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (with Jonny Depp), including the awesome Dance Video in the extras (Didn't that seem rather... choreographed?). Friday saw more vegging. I guess the whole weekend involved much vegging. But, when vegging, there is always much sliding down the hallway in socks also. At least, in the winter, when I wear socks, there is sliding.

Friday night started out as an awesome women and Ben's night out in the Lower East Side (LES). Off we went on a grand trip to the Boar's Head Tavern, sight of many a fun night out previously. We got free shots, all we had to give the bar was our email addresses (hey, what is gmail for, anyway?)! So Bsom and Jhoff wussed out when it was only like 1am (I was thinking there that 1am would sound really late, so the phrase "only like 1am" would be humorous, yet in my head 1am really does sound early). That's when the real fun started.

And by real fun, I mean a dude old enough to be our father (turned out he *has* daughters our age) struck up a conversation with us. So we go into bullshit mode, aiming for interesting conversation and possibly a free drink from Mr. "I got rich off of the Stock Market, lalala." Unfortunately, he was far more interested in getting my attention by putting his hand on my leg, especially while I was talking to some other dude about his fancy cell phone ("And I don't care... if your cell phone... has a qwerty keyboard... But at least you are... not ske-etchy..."). So TMQ and I went to the bathroom. In retrospect, this was a bad idea, because it left KPd alone with Mr. Sketch. I return upon getting an sos text message from KPd, to find super-sketchy-old-dude touching her hair. So I yelled at him, and he left. It was way cool. I mean, guys being sketchy sucks. But this made it cooler to regulate his ass. Dudes need to stop assuming they can do shit like assuming they can touch women they don't even know. Rarr.

Saturday night was much better, and way more dance-tastic. We went to a hipster bar, also in the LES, and danced out pants off. The bouncer was 'hawked, the tunes were kickin', and the crowd was way trendy. And we fit right in! Mostly because we rawk, and are sweet-as dancers. It was a blast and a half. And we left before 3! We could have gone to the Panty Party (apparently a way hip thing to get into), but were exhausted.

Today, we slept in again, as per usual. Then we went to Bay Ridge (home of all the Norwegians!) and checked out the pier. There was fishing, and biking, and skateboarding, and even some scooting! And a great view of both Manhattan and the Verazano Narrows Bridge. Didn't really find any of those Norwegians tho... But we did find an awesome home-style restaurang/ice cream parlor! Like Friendly's, but without the chain-restaurant-ness or the slow service. Only they screwed up my order... whatevs.

Upon arriving home, we watched Shaun of the Dead, which is awesome. Then more 'Friends.' Then I blogged!

Adios, for now.

Slope-tastic

2005-10-23T20:54:00.000-04:00

So, here I am in the Tea Lounge, pulling a Jess (updating my blog from an Apple laptop in the Tea Lounge, that is, oh and also doing this after a trip to SoHo to go shopping at American Apparel... and other places).

Work is insane. This isn't to say I'm unhappy, just busy. Like, way busy. Like, I thought there were laws against this busy. Ok not *that* bad, but my roommates are starting to wonder if I still live at home. I think I saw my face on a milk carton the other day, come to think of it...

I finally have more than one pair of pants! After the above SoHo shopping spree. I'd been rotating between the one pair of jeans I have here (think I left the other pair up in the MA), and it was getting old. My signature green cargo pants are stained, alas. But I have stocked up on made-in-the-USA knitwear! Woot!

Also, bsom, aberg, kpd and I reached a new level of trendiness by playing Settlers at Buttermilk, the nearby hipster bar. It's like a coffee shop that serves alcohol, noted KPd, who also won, keeping Wesleyan undefeated in Settlers in Brooklyn (yes, Vassar, consider the gauntlet thrown). Ben's glasses... Kerry's new t-shirt collection... rounds of Yuengling... we're so trendy =D Apparently my boatneck top is also hipster-ish, but I feel like things I bought at the mall could never really be defined as hipster-ish. Working at the Onion is pretty hip, I guess. And, yes, I do have some pretty hipster-tastic t-shirts. But I wasn't wearing one of those at Buttermilk.

oh werd?

2005-10-03T23:32:00.000-04:00

::dusts off keyboard::

when was i here last? oops. i like to be more reliable to my faithful readers. all three of them.

so, um what happened since i've been gone?
-we stopped the war. er, we said 'make levees not war,' which became the theme of the protests, according to the news media. they failed to mention the part where tons of veterans were there, including veterans of this particular war.
-i got a job. at the Onion. i'm wicked psyched. i started today. and worked 9 hours. woah. i was gonna work more, but things didn't work right when i got them home, oops.
-i started design school. i'm so trendy. and, it's a shit-ton of work.
-i learned--or re-learned, rather--that some boys are mega-tools. but some are way hot. ok, plenty are both.
-the red sox got the wild card pick again. this time by tying the yank-offs' record. bullshit, if ya ask me. well, what's bullshit is the part where there would have been a mini playoff had cleveland also tied the sox and yanks. stupid crazy baseball rules. anyhoo, GO RED SOX!
-we went to some parties. much fun was had.
-clearly, i forgot how to be dryly humorous. i'll work on that for next time.

Ask Bono

2005-09-14T22:22:00.000-04:00

New! At The New York Times! Ask Bono a question (or five) about world poverty and/or the UN Summit!

class warfare

2005-09-07T14:35:00.000-04:00

Thanks to The Huffington Post, I've come across continuing ricockulousness of FEMA and the right wing media-industrial complex (Yes, it's an industrial complex too now. Or maybe it would just be the right wing media complex? I dunno. It's crap is what it is).

In Louisiana, Bush's visit to New Orleans postponed the delivery of 3 tons of food to starving hurricaine victims; in Atlanta, some 1000 firefighters were trained to pass out pamphlets to refugees, rah-rah-ing FEMA and telling people which toll-free number to call with questions. But with what phones? you ask... I've been wondering the same myself.

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum thinks harsher punishments for people refusing to evacuate would prevent catastrophes like this from occurring in the future, and First Mother Barbara Bush thinks the victims are better off homeless in Texas.

It's times like these i really wish I got Comedy Central. And CNN. Even FOX News is getting slightly critical of the handling of the situation (Geraldo cried).

Me? I'm fucking pissed off. Instead of doing anything at all to help, the administration is posing for photo ops and FEMA is doing the PR work. I will see each and every one of you in the streets on 24th September.

dear myself from a week and a half ago...

2005-09-07T00:35:00.000-04:00

you'll want to remember these things:

the F train is not running its normal route for the weekend of 26-29 august. get the fuck off the train at hoyt-schermerhorn.
dude, that's the pier where the folks were held during the rnc!
the tp can wait. say hello first.
skip the thing about the wine; maybe say something about the haircut instead.
not that way! the projects are that way! remember what vik said about what nyc projects look like? that's it.
"i don't think that's your concern" is a perfectly reasonable answer when sketchy guy down the street asks if you're single. also, lying. that works.
don't forget to leave enough time to *buy* the metronorth ticket. there are machines if need be.
also leave time for the F train to once again be screwy, and take forever.
one beer is enough before assembling furniture.

that is all.

And I don't care if your cell phone has an iPod in it...

2005-08-30T11:20:00.000-04:00

do do do do dooooo...

So the New York Times thinks that Apple, Motorola, and Cingular plan to release a cell phone iPod, probably at Apple's press event on 7th September. Now, I love my iPod, and my cell phone, as much as the next kid, but I don't think I'd want them in one package. My first thought was, what if you run down the battery playing music, and then need to make a call? Maybe it has two batteries? But that would be ridiculous.

Generally, I'm not a fan of this wave of multi-use gadget craze. Yeah, it can be fun to take a picture and send it to somebody else's phone, but I'd rather have a phone that works well and a camera that works well and an iPod that works well. And I really don't like the whole idea of sneakily taking pictures with a cell phone, pretending like you're finding a number or whatever. So, that's my rant about silly gadgets. I will say, I have gotten used to the camera phones over the past two years, maybe the same will be true for the iPod phones.

In other news, comments are back! With decipher-the-word-like-when-you-buy-concert-tickets action! Try it today!

also

2005-08-23T20:21:00.000-04:00

new states visited map! (you'll have to check the archive for the old one)
since the road trip, it looks like this!

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

not an urban legend after all

2005-08-23T19:58:00.000-04:00

It hadn't reached urban-legendary enough status to make snopes (which has a new top navigation banner, but the same old look on the bottom... resulting in total weirdness... and i should know, i'm about to start design school) yet, but we'd all heard the rumor:

Nalgenes cause cancer.

Well, somebody finally did googling, and came up with an article... or, more aptly, a blog post, detailing various studies done on the plastic over the years. Long story short, yes, the hard plastic Nalgene bottles cause cancer and birth defects in mice. And since human ova are weaker than mouse ova, they probably at least cause birth defects in humans too. Klean Kanteen has links to various other articles on the subject, as well as stainless steel bottles for purchase.

Some bottles are safe. The dangerous ones, on the bottom, have a 7 in the recycling symbol with 'PC' under it. Far as I know, the soft ones are safe. Unfortunately, my new Zion National Park bottle is PC 7. Sigh. Somebody alert Wesleyan... Maybe it was a plot by Nalgene against the Left.

that's it! no more comments!

2005-08-18T23:53:00.000-04:00

after 5 comments in the span of an hour, all complete junk (ads), i've limited commenting to only members of this blog (ie, me). if you email comments, i'll post them, but i refuse to be a tool of spammage. or the man. yeah.

fuck you, sploggers!

shite!

2005-08-18T22:01:00.000-04:00

ok, people need to stop spommenting (splogging? spam-commenting.) on my blogs. it will be deleted, all of it. and if it doesn't stop, appologies to all, i'll have to stop allowing comments at all (or, at least, by people who aren't me, basically). grr.

in other news, i'ma get a certificate in graphic and digital design (focusing on web design) at parsons. woot!

pics from the road trip on their way, i promise.

Kitchen!

2005-07-25T11:31:00.001-04:00

kitchen/bathroom
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

Where the food is. And the door to the bathroom. Check out the awesome shower curtain, thanks to KPd!

Living Room

2005-07-25T11:31:00.000-04:00

living room
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

Here's where we play Settlers. And sometimes I read there, if it's not hot enough out to make me hide in the bedroom (see below)

The view

2005-07-25T11:30:00.000-04:00

view
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

Here's what I see from my bedroom window. More excitingly, what I see *in* my bedroom window is an air conditioner.

bedroom/office

2005-07-25T11:27:00.000-04:00

bedroom/office
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

Here's where I sleep, and work for the moment. As always, IKEA-tastic!

The 'hood

2005-07-25T11:26:00.000-04:00

street
Originally uploaded by ertzeid.

Here's our street, as seen from my roommate's bedroom. It's a cute, neighborhood-y spot, right near the park and the subway and trendy 7th Ave.

harry potter!!!

2005-07-20T13:02:00.000-04:00

well, i finished reading harry potter and the half blood prince. rawkin good book, but not my favorite. i'll post in the comments section so as to prevent accidental spoilage. so, don't click comments if you a) don't want to read spoilers or b) don't care.

schadenfreude

2005-07-14T00:21:00.000-04:00

i saw my first 'don't blame me, i voted for kerry' bumper-sticker this evening. it was worn enough that it was probably there before friday, and it's nowhere near as cool as the original, but this rove story is beginning look at least a little like 1972... i imagine.

it's not just that it's fun to watch the Republicans squirm (but oh man is it fun...)

we've all been hurt, over the past six years, and disappointed, by the wusses who try to pass for the Left in this country, when they failed to produce dynamic, likeable candidates in 2000 and 2004; when they misplaced their balls over the iraq war issue; when they were forced into a "compromise" over the federal judges... some of us curled up into the foedal position ready to hibernate until 2008 (hey that rhymes!)

but there is a new hope for the Democrats and for we the forces of good in this nation. perhaps it's only a small glimmer of a speck of a dream (hey, dubya's media machine makes "it depends on what the definition of 'is' is" look like "i am not a crook"... ok i'm not really sure what that means). but for the first time in a long time, the White House is running scared.

really scared.

and forget that they deserve far worse.

we finally have some hope that maybe the country will wake up and, come fall of 2006 (two whole years early!) vote in some people who won't let the neocons get away with whatever they want; that maybe the media will start asking real questions and printing real stories; that maybe, just maybe... can we let ourselves dream?... somebody in this administration may just be forced to resign (or get fired... or... impeached? well, that one would depend on the Dems winning back the House on '06, or the GOP deciding to cut and run from the Dubya drones).

It's not just schadenfreude that's making the Left excited to turn on the Al Franken show and read the New York Times in the morning. Could we actually get some level-headed, honest people back in the Executive branch... and the other two too? Dare we dream?

And this time, if the neocons pull through with a full deck, we're *definitely* moving to Canada.

Most-updated blog!

2005-07-11T12:18:00.000-04:00

Of the three blogs I post(ed) too (this, eurotrip04, and oniondreams), this one, as of this post, has the most posts. Eurotrip04 of course has lots of posts because it's one post per picture, because that was easiest from flickr.

Anyhoo, here's the actual post:

From the annals of Oniondreams

Says Paul Krugman in today's opinion piece,

To understand where the budget deficit came from, you can't do better than the Jan. 18, 2001, issue of the satirical newspaper The Onion, which predicted the future with eerie precision. "We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent," the magazine's spoof had the president-elect declare. "And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

So, for those of you new to badass title, or just generally not in the know (out of the know?) there was for a short time last summer another blog called oniondreams, which linked articles in the real news that looked more like The Onion than they did like real news. Now, it has come full circle, and the actual news has come to resemble an actual Onion article. Well, i guess it had happened by a year or two ago, but this doesn't change the fact that The Onion pre-emptively reported the actual news.

i think i forgot my work ethic in massachusetts

2005-07-06T15:16:00.000-04:00

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

BROOKLYN!!!

2005-07-02T07:16:00.000-04:00

so, i've moved to brooklyn. i have no mattress yet, but that should be delivered today. we also have no gas, but someone's coming to look at that today too. we do have a subletter, who so far is pretty cool. and who plays settlers! tmq is gonna have to learn to play now. today's project is to set up all my shit where it goes, so that i'm not overflowing into tmq's room anymore. and so that the mattress can actually go on the bed. i hope to post a photo essay of it all soon... but, i'm on poached wireless from my work computer now, and my pictures i manage on my own computer, so... we'll see... ooh i wonder how much airPort cards cost...

gimme a call/email/something if you're in the area! let's hang out!

2005-06-26T17:29:00.000-04:00

Vin Diesel holds the world record for being a hovercraft