Celebrating!

We passed by the area where the guy took this video on our victory run around Brooklyn.

Another awesome thing was LN yelling at people getting off the shuttle with her megaphone from our window right after they called the election: "OBAMA WINS." "OBAMA WINS." And those people being real excited and cheering because they hadn't heard, yet.

Deeper thoughts to come when I've acclimated. Also WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!

My kitchen smells like Failure.

I tried to make French Toast.
I ended up making toast with some eggs on top.

The steps for making French Toast as I recall them from when I was 8 years old:

Step 1: Take two eggs and mutilate them in a bowl

Step 2: Drown some bread in the bowl with the mutilated eggs (When I was little this was always white bread around my teen years it suddenly became whole wheat.)

Step 3: Stick squished toast in pan; heat.

Step 4: Pour syrup all over food, maybe get some butter, and voraciously consume.

End Result:


The step for making French Toast as I performed them this morning:

Step 1: Mix eggs to about the usual consistency I do for scrambled eggs. (i.e. not very mixed because I mean c'mon I'm just gonna scramble them in the pan, right?!)

Step 2: Put whole wheat bread in not-quite-totally-mixed eggs; attempt to cover entire slice; end up with goopy spillover from one side to the other on the toast.

Step 3: Drop in pan, watch as eggs slowly cook on top of bread. Begin to panic.

Step 4: Rapidly scrape eggy bits on sides of pan off. Remark to roommate that you seem to have managed to fuck up cooking French Toast, which you had not hitherto realized was possible. Listen to roommates suggestion to add milk in with the eggs next time to thin them up.

Step 5: Cover Toast in syrup.

Step 6: Find health insurance card just in case. Have 911 highlighted on phone's speed dial. Eat.

End Result:















P.S. Following syrup dousing french toast was totally edible.

I live here!

This is what happens when nerds get drunk

This is a result of a conversation at 3 am in which I attempted to recall some basic facts about computer science in order to explain them to EK's wasted molecular biology PHD holding brother.

LN's scene painter friend Mike also added his own contribution later.

Grammar

So I'm finding this blog thing to be a good way of organizing my thoughts, before I share them with others (read: co-workers) who have very little tolerance for picking apart an idea and grinding it into powder in an effort to understand it, and absolutely no tolerance for the weird left turns my brain tends to take. (Evidence: Whenever I talk about how awesome it's going to be when we all finally get brain internet, and people call in sick because they just caught the chicken dance virus, co-workers eyes glaze over and they respond to a question I haven't asked.) However, as I occasionally glance through back posts I'm wondering how large exactly my mother's level of disappointment at my atrocious grammar must be. Grammar, I might add, that I have no reason to improve, because I work in a visual medium and the longest written thing I send out into the world other than this blog are short e-mails to vendors about needing drawings. Still it perturbs me, because I can see the mistakes when I re-read blog posts, but simply do not care enough to fix them. My solution: I will, as Mark Twain once did, leave a large group of punctuation at the end of each post and allow you the reader to insert them as needed.*

..............................,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,!!!!&&&((((((())))))))){{{{{}}}}}:::::;;;;;;;;;;

*Author's Note: I did not leave as many of certain symbols, if you need more use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C to copy a symbol and Ctrl+V to paste it.

Capsule Reviews of Media I've Interacted With Part 2

Laika - A graphic novel about the Russian space dog. Basically readable, it has a really great opening sequence with a man walking out of the gulag and turns a little mediocre from there. The art is very pretty and you find yourself caring about the characters even though they are somewhat thinly drawn. 3/5 Liked it.

WNYC's Radio Lab - A podcast that is basically This American Life, but with science. They pick one theme and discuss weird or interesting stories related to that theme for about an hour. But the theme is Memory and Perception or Zoos. It's really fascinating. However, listener beware the stories tend towards the bizarre and the fluffy rather than the in-depth and scientific. So only go if you want to hear some weird stuff about what can happen in human lives (or tiger lives). 5/5 Loved it.

Coyle and Sharpe: The Imposters - A podcast of recordings made on the streets of San Francisco in the early 1960's before people knew about prank humor as an entertainment medium. The tagline for the show is: "James P. Coyle and Mal Sharpe roam the streets looking for marks." What's really interesting about this is how many people believe them, and most people don't try to play along they explain why what sharpe and coyle are doing is insane, but they use 60's language to describe it. It's more fun than modern prank shows, I think because the prankee isn't really a victim in the modern sense of the word. It's obvious to the listener who's in control in the scene. 4/5 Really Like It.

Dexter - Thanks to Netflix Instant I just made it all the way through Season 1 of Dexter. I had been avoiding it because it had been so hyped and I thought it was just going to be CSI meets Batman. In actuality the show runs on the same mechanics Weeds does the characters keep getting tangled in these plotlines where you gotta know what Happens NEXT! But at the same time it's an interesting character study of how a sociopath passes for normal. And it is chock full of dramatic irony, the writers/directors by putting Dexter in a normal family environment manage to make you the viewer freak out and hold your breath while everyone on screen relaxes and has a good time. 4/5 Really Like It.

The Maria Bamford Show - This show which is available free online if you just click that link, starts off as just Maria doing her stand-up basically, but in the later episodes branches off into the totally bizarre. Maria plays every character using clever costume changes such as putting a chip clip in her hair and bugging out her eyes. My favorite episode is the second one I've embedded below where she forces her real mom to audition for the role of her mom on the show. (If you haven't seen her do her impression of her mother you should watch the first video first. If you have you can skip to the second one.) 5/5 Loved it.

The first episode:


Her mother's audition:

Capsule Reviews of Media I've Interacted With, Pt 1

The Salon - A graphic novel, murder mystery about art in Paris right before the cubist period. I really enjoyed this, it was silly and a little crude at times, but definitely a solid rental. Score: 4/5 Really liked it.

City People Notebook - This is the first Will Eisner graphic novel that I've actually enjoyed usually I find them preachy and I find his characters to be shallow and not grounded in reality. But in this one he discusses a bunch of phenomenon that I experience daily with accuracy and humor. Score: 3/5 Liked It.

Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast: Ep. 13 This American Life 2 - Greatest parody ever of all time. Most of their sketches are pretty good every once in a while they totally miss the mark, but mostly pretty enjoyable. Overall podcast Score: 3/5 Liked it This episodes podcast score: 5/5 Loved it!

Jordan, Jesse Go! - A two guys chatting style of podcast, that I really enjoy. The dynamic is pretty entertaining, at first I really disliked Jesse Thorn he seemded kind of obnoxious, but after a bunch of episodes I now really like both of them. They take call-ins for people's momentous occasions which are usually pretty entertaining, and generally just discuss the nature of life in your early twenties with a decent sense of humor. Score: 4/5 Really Like it.

MI:5

Is a great television show.

With one tragic flaw.

Fucking computers. Any god damn espionage that involves a Turing machine of some kind looks like someone slapped a god damn powerpoint presentation on a Windows 95 operating system. It's ridiculous. It totally removes me from the story, is unbelievable and doesn't even have a reasonable operating interface. It reminds me of a sim hacking game JRPM pointed out to me the name I cannot recall but it had silly cutesy graphics and a simplistic premise. But was entertaining when movies were on in the background before it became intensely frustrating.

Casino Royale got it right. Obviously it can be done.

What I don't understand is that the fake UI seems to have been designed by someone who's never used a computer before. A stored password on a laptop that gives direct access to MI:5's main servers simply by clicking a shortcut on the desktop? Come the fuck on! But they had to use a computer in order to make the fake program! So where's the breakdown happening? I'm assuming that it is a money issue that the computer screen designer had bigger more expansive goals but did not have the time or the money to see them realized. That it was not specifically but there just to piss me off, by a show that in all other respects has re-affirmed my faith in humanity.

Time's A Wastin'

*Disclaimer: This post is super live journally because I'm starting on a campaign to bitch about my job less to my roomates, and it also has to come out somewhere.

Am I the only one who notices that giant countdown timer in the lower right hand corner? Is it just me?Am I all alone in understanding that we only have a limited amount of time here? If shit's gonna go down we have to make it go down, it needs to happen here and now. If it's not just me then why do my co-workers want to waste 30 of the precious minutes I have to spend on this earth discussing low-fat muffins.

Also small interruptions can become big things when in the fishbowl world of a small office. However a loss of perspective on this becomes intensely frustrating, such as when my boss runs out of his office jumping and yelling about some smallish ridiculous thing. Everybody laughs. A nice convenient interruption. And then the German has to go and fucking ruin it by announcing, "I swear sometimes it's like a circus in here!" Cue canned laughter from other office drones.

No, it is not like working at a circus, running around handling animals, dodging acrobats, setting up tents at state fairs and packing up after the weekend is what working at circus is like. The same way sitting in front of desk for 8-9 hours, desperately trying to find reasons to like the people you are surrounded by for eight hours a day is what working in an office is like.

Maria Bamford Discusses:

I have magic lunch meat.

I was making a sandwich this morning, because I am currently in a "I should stop spending money on frivolities like edible food that leaves me feeling satiated and well fed and instead prepare my own food for less money" week. As opposed to a "Hey I'm tired of making and consuming mediocre food I feel that I deserve the added bonus of eating tasty tasty Pad Rama" week. Which is a cycle that seems to be based on a tech week, week after strike style of living. Or perhaps a Catholic guilt confession cycle. Anyhow there I was making a sad sad sandwich and I had my salami, my corned beef and my cheese and spicy brown mustard ready and raring to go. (The spicy brown mustard was obviously the most up and at 'em, while the corned beef was complaining about it's feet a lot.) I went to go get a ziploc bag (you really need the bags because otherwise the sandwich will feel neglected and it is liable to get up on its hind legs and begin yelling the gospel at innocent commuters and well frankly that's just embarrassing) and I turned around and the salami was gone! I assumed that I had simply placed something on top of it and forgotten about it, but as a I moved things around and looked on the floor I was unable to locate it. I checked the fridge assuming that I had simply forgotten to take it out and put it on the table. The salami was not in the fridge. I promptly gave up because I was running late figuring that the smell would eventually notify me of the salamis location when I returned at night. As I was putting my shoes on in the den I looked up to see this!I am hesitant to curse because my mother is the only other person besides Revolutions Per Minute who reads this blog, but....

HOW the FUCK did my salami get there?

It couldn't have fallen into that position.

I at no point put it on the chair.

The only explanation is that the salami is magic and should instead of being eaten have a shrine built to it by me, inside the fridge. My roomates can deal. I mean the salami's magic god knows what the consequences will be if I don't construct a shrine and instead choose to consume it.

P.S. I apparently after taking the picture forgot to put the salami back in the fridge and L found it later.

My Imaginary Internet Friends

I heard a This American Life in which David Rakoff mentions a statistic that says that people who watch a television show with a continuing storyline and characters who grow and develop, something like The Office, reap the same benefits from the television program that actually spending time with real live human beings gives them. Mr. Rakoff then mentions that he doesn't watch TV because unlike real people television can't look over at him and check whether or not he's died on the couch.

I listen to about 4-6 hours of podcasts every workday. I would argue that this behavior is much more damaging than watching an episode or two of The Office and becoming sort of involved in how Jim and Pam are doing. Podcasts are sneakier, because the production values tend towards the amateur. It is a lot like tapping the phone conversations of two people you happen to think are funny. Much like a phone conversation, you only remember the interesting things the other person said as material for good story fodder later. Unlike a phone conversation, they do not know you are there.

Podcasts that make me feel this way:
-Jordan Jesse Go
-You Look Nice Today
-Stephen Fry's Podgrams
-The Bitterest Pill

In some ways this is even more pathetic than WoW because in WoW I've heard that you make and play with friends who know that you are on the other side of the DancingOrcBearThing they are running around a giant fantasy land with. Instead, not knowing that you are sitting trapped in an office in Long Island City thinking to yourself, "Man, if these guys knew me they'd totally be friends with me." Although I have to say realistically probably the only people on these podcasts I'd want to be friends with would be Jordan Morris and Stephen Fry.


*Other podcasts I listen to that are quality, but not a two guys chatting show:
The Bugle - really funny news entertainment show
The Moth - live storytelling in NY
New Yorker: Fiction - someone reads a new yorker story outloud and then discusses it
The Sound of Young America - Jesse Thorn, an obnoxious host who eventually grows on you interviews really interesting people
This American Life - duh
Science Talk - the podcast of Scientific American
Downloadable Content: The Penny Arcade Podcast - this almost could have been a two guys chatting about video games bu they do actually make something by the end of it

This is a picture of the loud puppy outside the laundromat. It was meant to be a picture of the parking meter(because man-made things are easier to draw), which is why the dog's scale doesn't match.The background is totally cheating but whatever. He was very fierce even though everything around him was bigger than he was and he peed on a bunch of things just in case other dogs didn't know he was there for an hour, barking at everyone who passed by.

The Thrilling Adventures of Fred the Mouse

This is the story of how Fred the Mouse outsmarted an apartment of directionless twentysomethings.

Fred was making his usual 2 am run from beneath the fridge when he noticed that lights were on in the den.

Fred idly wondered if he had been spotted.

E: "I think we have a mouse."
Rocky: "I didn't see it. How do you know it's not a giant centipede?"
E: "He was like this big."

E spread her fingers to exactly mouse size

Rocky: "Okay we have a mouse, we should get a live trap."

Fred: Dammit! (which to the twentysomethings sounded like scurry scurry scurry SQUEAK!)

Later having adjusted his schedule to prevent further plotting in his presence Fred came upon a strange contraption.

Fred (laughing): That's the best they can do? Don't they realize I don't climb things?

Having successfully avoided the Rube Goldberg trap for a week Fred was feeling more relaxed. Until in his sleep during the day he overheard this tidbit. "Well I don't think he climbs, we better get a real live trap."

Fred, unfortunately does not speak English very well, he's originally an Albanian mouse. So Fred failed to understand the distinction between live trap and trap trap. He realized that the directionless twentysomethings were not going to stop attempting to capture him and decided that the only way to preserve his honor would be to die in the middle of the hallway. Not only did his death deny the twentysomethings a true victory over him, it also forced L to throw him out. It also forced Rocky upon hearing the tale of Fred's demise and burial from L to wonder if that thing she kicked in the hallway that morning was a dead mouse or something else. Even though there was nothing else in the hallway at the time. At all. But she would have noticed if she had kicked a dead mouse, right? I mean that's something you notice...

Ladies!

The Problem:
I intensely dislike this greeting.

The Cause:
I would like to say it comes from an adult feminist perspective like that eschewed* by Sloane Crosley, she describes her response to an e-mail that begins with ladies (the very same thing that prompted this rant for me!)

An e-mail arrived from Francine. It began, as all e-mails pertaining to this event did, with a "Ladies:". Ladies. Large masses of girls are often prone to this salutation. Once is fine, twice is acceptable, any more and I feel like I'm having high tea at Windsor. I hate being mollified with this unsolicitad "ladies" business. I know we're all women. I am conscious of my breasts. Do I have to be conscious of yours as well?

I do identify with this statement. But I think that for me it really stems from the fact that the most frequent time it was used in my life was when they were separating us from the boys to teach us about the changes in our bodies, or when a large group of girls was giggling. I also haven't really heard it since elementary school college so it makes me feel as though I am being talked to like a child. This happens frequently at my work where the office staff is predominantly female. So the second a person possessing a set of testicles leaves the building people just start throwing "Ladies:" around like it's confetti.

*I really like the word eschewed because it sounds like they are sneezing their statements out.

Solution #1:
Develop a series of pamphlets advocating the use of the phrase "Hey, guys..." Stand in Grand Central and hand them to passers-by. Maybe engage in a knife fight with a Jews for Jesus representative in order to acquire primo pamphlet handing real estate, which apparently is the tunnel between the 4,5,6 and the 7 because heathens want to get to Flushing in the morning!

(A piece of trash a Jew for Jesus handed me. A cursory glance at the pamphlet reveals that they feel the transmogrification of Jesus into crackers is too complex for your average commuter to grasp and instead choose to explain the Jesus is like 5 hour energy drinks because unlike chocolate he makes you feel good without the sugar crash afterward.)

Solution #2:
Become a supervillian in order to raise enough money to build a secret lair in which to invent and build a mind control device that will allow me to wipe the knowledge of this word out of the minds of every living human on the planet. This may make labeling bathrooms slightly more difficult, but in the end it will be for the greater good.

Solution #3:
Make piece with y'all and hope that it's gender neutrality will allow it to spread far and wide. Yes, I've spent 4 years mocking it in order to patch together a unique northern identity to make myself feel special during college. But I'd be willing to swallow my pride and give y'all the respect it's due for being the most widespread consistent version of the 2nd person plural. I'd feel dirty, but as South Park taught us sometimes the difference between a douche bag and a turd sandwich is all the difference in the world.

A picture of a bug I killed

(Dramatic Re-enactment)

I bravely decided to sacrifice one of the orange cups I stole from my college roommate.I then flushed him down the toilet and yelled "Sorry!" at him, which I think Karma wise does me no good.Afterwards LN figured out that house centipedes kill cockroaches and I felt sort of dumb for killing him, but then I remembered that he was a creepy little dude who was gross and I stopped feeling dumb.

I think the ice cream trucks are full of drugs.

Who needs ice cream at midnight?

(Also I find ice cream truck music to be really creepy at night. It sounds like Chester the Molester just had himself a "real good ideer" and simply forgot to factor in normal bedtimes for children)

The Mike Birbiglia Show

Went to a Mike Birbiglia* show for essentially free, because I haven't paid my roommate back yet. I am going to try to watch more shows in the UCB space because it has a nice black box feel and it has $3 beer. The show was good, Birbiglia's set was more like a one man show than a stand-up routine compared to other routines I've seen on cable television. Although I felt engaged the whole time, there were a few moments where his choice to be serious and level with us came off as really rehearsed, which they probably are but... because of the one man show feel the rehearsedness was sort of jarring. But that gripe refers to two moments in an hour long show. It was really funny, really solid, and I would watch him again. Also, the confessional monologuey aspect to it worked really well in a small Black Box theatre style studio space, and I would be interested to find out if his delivery changes in different venues.

Leaving the house to go to the show there was a pretty kick ass sunset and as usual an eight year old trying to run me over with a Razor scooter. Apparently shouting "Excuse me!" really indignantly when you're about to hit someone with your scooter removes one from all liability and remorse. It was an 11 o'clock show and we stopped for a beer afterwards, but I had work the next morning so I needed to leave the group early. This resulted in a solitary subway ride back to Brooklyn, which was also the first late night solitary subway ride I have actually enjoyed. The trains go local late at night and that makes a trip that was 25 minutes trip take an hour on the return. The A train however has the really fancy seats that allow you to curl up and stare at the walls of the subway tunnel and just space out. It creates a thinking environment that is very similar to the nighttime long distance driving, basically it is really conducive to brooding. I still don't have a coherent 5 year plan, but I think I know where and when I'm going to develop one.

*A note to Mike Birbiglia if your google alert finds this blog: You are not pudgy.

7-11s vs. Bodegas

Current City Challenge:

Adapting from a 7-11/WaWa culture to a Bodega culture.

Things I learned I can find at a 7-11, but not at a Bodega:
Batteries

Dairy Products that aren't Milk i.e. cream cheese, cheese cheese and eggs

1 Liter Bottles of a variety of soda

A wide variety of Ben & Jerry's ice cream more specifically Cookie Dough Ice cream.

Creepy suggestions of co habitation from the 50 year old clerk who apparently is tired of commuting from Paterson to Rutherford.

A Big Gulp

Largish Bags of Potato Chips

Overcooked sausage based monstrositys that remind me that I am still alive.

Things I learned I could get from a Bodega but not a 7-11:












(Image Stolen from google because I felt weird about standing in front of the bodega with a camera, but this is what it looks like.)

A wider selection of Beer than at the full on supermarket 4 blocks further down the street, and quite possibly more than most supermarkets I've been to.

Sodas with labels in languages I can't read.

A half melted pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish food from the freezer in front of the counter, that happened to have been the only pint of Ben & Jerry's available, which I desperately need because my apartment lacks air-conditioning (to be discussed in a future post not so much the lack of it, as other people's reactions to my lack of air-conditioning).

Exposed to the latest in Latin radio.

Looked at funny when I ask if they have cream cheese.

My Agenda.

I'm tired of trying to force friendships with people who don't share my interests. I want my nerd friendships back. I want people for whom a weekend of playing the Sims with the TV on in the background in the den while they sit there occasionally talking is on their personal short list of top weekend activities. Seriously. I once spent a very excellent Spring Break at the Outer Banks doing this. I don't want to lie about how much time I spend playing video games. I want to talk about Hellboy and the Hulk and Iron Man and Constantine and Frank Miller. I also want to talk about quantum physics and php vs. java vs. C. I want to get into arguments about Macs and PCs and use phrases like unix shell and telnet in common speech. I don't want to settle for gossiping about office politics and talking about the city and the weather and current events. Fuck current events I want to talk about the things I care about. NERD THINGS. I want to use the word tepid in a sentence without having people react like I just tried to pass off disestablishmentarianism off casually. To a certain extent I already have these friends its more that I want some replacement ones that live within a 15 mile radius of my current location and aren't related to me.

However...

I hate sci-fi nerds I don't wish to discuss Star Trek or Star Wars extended universe with anyone and I don't want to interact with anyone who has ever LARPed.

This may be to much to ask of chance meetings with friends of co-workers and roomates. So I have decided to embark on a plan to create these friends. I will prompt my non video gaming roomate to join me in a round of Wii sports. I will leave comic books (all 4 that I own) out "accidentally" for general perusal. I am however open to suggestions on how to behavior modify my office co-workers into talking about things I am interested in. Perhaps hijacking their browser settings so that their home page is now slashdot? Or kidnapping them and forcing them to come see Hellboy with me? All of these are good options.

Cutting the hair this length may have been a mistake...

Am being mistaken for a man more than usual. So much so that have developed new strategy of lowering my voice when responding to storekeepers questions so I don't have to deal with the inevitable apology from the convenience store proprietors once they hear my girl voice. Of course the mens polos, the being flat chested, general dykishness, and my "distinctive" walk are not helping the problem. But I like all that stuff.

A note on suddenly receiving an e-mail late in the afternoon about a coworker who is about to be fired

It's fucking weird.

Am I just to old for this?

This is the question I've been asking myslef as I play Twilight Princess for the Wii. I keep comparing it to games I play and have played on the Playstation 2 and feel that it doesn't exactly live up. It is an enjoyable experience but essentially just a really fancy version of Ocarina with a slightly different plot line. I get this annoyed feeling of knowing where the game is going to go next because the plot structure intensely similar, and yes obviously many of the Zelda games are the same but I'm talking about being able to predict basic minor plot changes that don't appear in the other games, a sensation I didn't feel with most sequels and remakes on the PS2 system. After leaving Nintendo for Sony during the PS2, XBox, Gamecube period, I am now returning to the Wii (because I can afford it). However, after playing a system with that has been praised for its groundbreaking titles coming back to a game where I have to read screens of text every time I get arrows or bombs is a little tiresome. Now granted Twilight needed to be playable on the Gamecube as well so I'm essentially playing a game that's 4 years old, but really could Nintendo really not afford voice actors? Being told how to equip items even when I've picked them up before is intensely frustrating, really condescending, and makes me want to hurl my nunchuck at the screen a la WiiHaveAProblem. However this is not where I'm going with this... My real problem with the game is that I know how to solve the people of Hyrule's problems with evil overlords once and for all. Stop thinking that evil villains can't get passed the simple puzzles that guard your dungeon. Logic and reasoning abilities have very little to do with having a socially aware well-balanced moral compass. Just because I can push a block onto a switch does not mean that I won't use the bow and arrow behind the gate to hurt the good people of Kakariko village. The developers do make a valient effort to prove Link's character by having characters look meaningfully into Link's eyes for 20 minutes until I start to get confused and wonder if I'm playing a Final Fantasy game, but that doesn't really do it for me. All this being said it is still a very good game and I'm enjoying the parts of the plot that I was not expecting and turning into a wolf is awesome. More games need that transformation hook. Unfortunately the nagging disappointment I feel as I go through this game means that I will eventually need to buy a PS3, that I cannot afford.