February 2003
Dear Employees Of The Blockbuster On Broadway At...
I know it hasn’t escaped your attention that I haven’t rented anything since my DVD Freedom Pass expired a while ago. Maybe you’ve noticed me outside, pointedly not making eye contact with any staff members despite the fact that I can see you all perfectly well through those ginormous windows and I walk by at least twice a day because you’re, like, right next to the train station. Blockbuster,...
January 2003
Mmm, Colonial
So if you’re an unabashed public television dweeb like me, and you totally dug on the whole Frontier House thing (and to a slightly lesser degree perhaps the whole 1900 House thing, and by lesser degree I’m making a vague reference only to the fact that it was only like three episodes long so I didn’t really have time to become completely enamored with it), then maybe you should...
Which Union Is He Talking About, Exactly
It’s not that I’m surprised our Commander In Chief spent most of the State of the Union talking about taxes and inflicting upon his audience that repulsive little smirk as applause greeted the end of his every sentence. I wouldn’t call it surprise, either, that I experienced when he tried to pass himself off as an environmentalist (not to mention an AIDS activist). And I...
Gollum Might Not Like Icymint All That Much
Marketplace has a great interview with Andy Serkis; New Line has been suggesting a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as Gollum, which would be a first. No one has ever been nominated for a “voiceover” role - but then, Gollum wasn’t a voiceover role at all. Serkis acted each of Gollum’s scenes during the regular shooting of the film, and then again in a motion...
Brrr
Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m no sissy when it comes to East Coast winter weather. I recall temperatures well below zero when I weren’t nothing more than knee-high to a grasshopper, and snowdrifts taller than me when I was considerably beyond grasshopper-height. Maybe it’s just that last winter was such a wussy ripoff of a winter, more like an unusually chilly and...
Alphabetilicous (Part One)
a is for Athena, who is smart and fun to read. b is for besmirched, home of dee bee underscore (say my name, say my name). c is for Catchdubs, written by a fellow NYU person. d is for the Dooce, who left us for a long time but then came back again. e is for enoentity, who doesn’t look like Henry Rollins, not even a little. f is for fuck.org, home to the mysterious #lost weblog. g is for...
Not Even A Little Neo-Crap
I know I was snarky about William Gibson using Blogger for his weblog, but I’ve been enjoying his posts more and more, lately. I’m impressed with how quickly he’s mastered the format – writing a novel or short story and writing for the web are very different beasts, but he’s made the transition seamlessly. I forget, sometimes, that I’m actually reading a weblog by the same guy who wrote...
Five Unexpectedly Pleasant Friday Bits
1. Chris and I went to the American Museum of Natural History today to check out the Einstein exhibit (which I recommend for the biographical miscellany, although the physics is oversimplified a bit) and to gawk at the dinosaurs. Post-gawking, we wandered through the massive and intimidating Dinostore. I acquired a Tube-O-Dinos, which was cool enough, and an Amber Insect lollipop, which turned out...
Adaptation: Eh
I’ve been meaning to write something about Adaptation since seeing it a couple weeks ago with Spencer and Chris, but I’ve been having trouble distilling my thoughts on the film into something at all comprehensible. Before seeing it, I told Spencer (who wanted to know what to expect) that I thought it would probably be weird and amusing, if nothing else, and I think that holds true. It...
(Yet More) Frequently Asked Questions
My own FAQ is rather out of date, I know. As part of rather more sweeping changes I’m still chipping away at, I’ve scrapped the whole thing and am rewriting as necessary. Classes have started again, though, which means my personal project time will be decreasing exponentially over the next couple of months – so here’s a couple more queries that show up a lot in my inbox, and their answers.
What’s...
To Do List (Special Birthday Edition)
- Note that Brasserie 8 1/2 has concocted from a certain cereal a “fritteresque” dessert they’re calling Special K Holes, but refrain from explaining why that’s funny. [via Gawker]
- Do savage violence upon anyone seen wearing NYC Bloggers merchandise; while the site has its many and various uses (the reviews are generally quite good), there’s no excuse for a baseball jersey advertising the...
Happy Birthday To Me
Although my birthday isn’t until tomorrow, Crispy decided we should do birthdayful things today since I have classes starting Tuesday morning (!). The main event was an excursion to the New Jersey Ikea via their cute little shuttle bus thing, which leaves from the Port Authority in Manhattan. We valiantly braved the Sunday afternoon crowds and I left with a bunch of fantastic kitchen stuff...
Recent Discoveries (A Selected Summary)
1. While exiting a blissfully warm shower to stand dripping in a Januaried apartment with remarkably sporadic heating ranks high on the list of unpleasant ways to exit a blissfully warm shower, the experience can be immensely improved if you leave your clothes on your sporadically functioning heater while you’re in the shower, because while it’s this huge crushing disappointment if...
I'm Getting Old
It’s provoking some minor and rather predictable incomprehension that I’m actually heading back to classes on Tuesday; even more so than the start of 2003, the arrival of beginning of this semester has made me realize that it’s now been a full year since I went back to school. This time last year I was wondering if I remembered how to write an academic paper and whether it was really such a good...
Midtown Is, Though
I’ve been seeing those FreshDirect ads around Manhattan for a while now. I have fond, fond memories of Kozmo my first year in New York, so I decided I’d give FreshDirect a whirl since it seems to be of approximately the same ilk, although the emphasis is on groceries rather than movie rentals and a weird selection of other products. FreshDirect probably doesn’t let you rent Dirty Dancing with a...
Maybe They Should Strike (That Would Be Fun)
Although not the first tidbit of news recently regarding NYC Transit, the plan to eliminating subway tokens actually piqued my interest rather than frustration. Since the advent of the single ride MetroCard, I’ve actually kind of wondered why tokens are still around. Single ride cards are paper and valid for only two hours, so they aren’t the kind of thing you’d want to carry...
A Misnomer, Perhaps
So, okay. I mentioned briefly my dabbling with iCal, and how I wet my pants over the whole subscription thing, right? And one of the calendars I subscribed to was naturally enough the one published by my friendly neighborhood Apple store, right? So then this morning I’m looking at the events listed and I happen to notice that there’s an advanced Jaguar workshop this very afternoon, and I happen to...
Children's Entertainment I Am Only Slightly...
1. The Powerpuff Girls Movie might just be the cutest thing in the entire world at all ever. I meant to see it in the theatre but never got around to it; I sort of suspect that watching the DVD in the privacy and relative quiet of my cozy little apartment was an experience infinitely preferable to watching it in a theatre full of little girls and their parents. Either way, I adore it, and...
I'm A Dedicated Student
What I love about academia, what really makes me revel in this whole blissful college kid thing despite the fact that I’m going to be twenty two in a week and I’m really ready to graduate any time now, what really bakes my cake as far as university is concerned: the vacations. Seriously, I dig the whole full time employment thing (the really phenomenal dearth of positions available for...
To Do List (Excerpted, Again)
- When discussing the impending start of the spring semester, manage to casually mention getting a 3.9 overall for the fall term but avoid bitching about still being on the waiting list for History of Modern Philosophy
- Harass the Philosophy department about still being on the waiting list for History of Modern Philosophy as a junior major, fer chrissakes
- Write up a To Do list consisting of...
Sweeping Up
Re: Safari: Not there yet. It’s 2003 and browsers are still being upgraded (or created) without tabbed browsing? The mind boggles. Also, I have to say I really dislike the “brushed aluminum” thing taking over all the iApps. I find it bulky, flat, and unappealing. Give me the old Cocoa pinstriping any day. However, the AppleScripts available look pretty slick, and once...
Monsters and Kittens and Hookers, Oh My!
Over the past few weeks, thanks in no small part to help from the philanthropic Crispy, I’ve picked up used copies of some of the games everyone is always shocked that I didn’t buy eons ago in the misty prehistoric dawn of last year, or whatever.
Soul Calibur and Shenmue were two of the most glaring absences - dating as they do back to well before I had a Dreamcast, and I’ve...
One Handed Typing
At one point over the summer, my wrists (which are rather notoriously badly-behaved) were bothering me enough that it made typing painful - but curiously enough, it was only my right hand. I suppose it was something to do with being right-handed, but the end result was that I spent a sticky afternoon in August trying to hold coherent conversations on IRC using only my left hand to type while I...
Winter Reading List
I loves me some book shopping, and the whole affair is made ever so much more delightful when one sets out armed with a couple of gift cards from a big brother who really knows his little sis.
My snazzy new Orwell collection has a spot of honor atop my snazzy new bookshelves. Normally, I prefer paperbacks because they’re lighter and easier to lug around in my bag. However, for things like...
The Five Best Things About 2003 (So Far)
1. I didn’t spend yesterday evening in Times Square. This makes four New Year’s Eves I’ve spent here and not a single one wasted getting squashed into the gaudiest, ugliest part of the city with half a million of its gaudiest, ugliest tourists - and they aren’t allowed to bring alcoholic beverages.
2. I did spend last night with my copy of Vice City, a bottle of Skyy, and...