Caoine.org

The wine is a lie!

I got this Foursquare badge during Internet Week a while back. (Open Bar Guru would be a more accurate name.) I was actually the first one to show up at HQ the following day, as instructed, but there wasn’t any wine there. They took my contact information and promised to be in touch when it arrived, but that never happened either.

So that’s my first world problem of the week: the Internet promised to give me free wine, and then it totally didn’t.

Why hello, there!

So, I’m in the process of migrating to Tumblr. I’m not going to promise that I won’t bail out and slink shamefully back to WordPress in a couple of weeks, but I do sort of doubt it. I’ve gotten the archives imported which was somewhat more annoying than I had expected, but I don’t doubt that you’ll see crazy shit all over the place. Just drop me an email (emma@caoine.org) when you notice something’s not right, and I’ll send a crew of cleanup bots zooming on over to have a look. And then kill you.

Music you want

• The Protomen: Sweet zombie Jesus, how I love The Protomen. There is no reason a 10-person Nashville band who do rock opera about Megaman should be good, but it so is. I have Tycho to thank for this one, actually. You may recall that I was still wicked sick during PAX, and consequently I thought pretty hard about disco-napping through the start of the Friday night shows and getting up just in time to see Front. I was assured, however, that even as a Protonoob I was in for quite a treat, and that turned out to be an understatement. Go get both albums right now, but also see if you can make it to a live show. I was blown away by their PAX set, and was similarly delighted at another show a couple weeks ago here in NYC. Totally worth seeing if you possibly can.
• Makeup and Vanity Set: I know about MAVS because of this awesome album of 8-bit Protomen remixes, which you should also acquire, but don’t stop there. The new self-titled album that came out in March is sheer pleasure. I feel like the same folks who dig Download and cEvin Key’s other solo stuff would dig this. Excellent background music for working.

• Anamanaguchi: Another PAX revelation! They’re also Brooklyn locals, which is handy. I recommend giving them a try even if you normally aren’t really into chiptune. I was skeptical, but both albums have made it into heavy rotation on my iPhone.
• Skeletonbreath: I love it when I’m surprised by an opening band. I feel like openers are often not paired very well with their headliners, which leads to everyone having kind of a shitty time. I can’t imagine it’s fun playing to a crowd that’s just waiting for you to get off the fucking stage, and while I appreciate the chance to pee and get another beer, I’d usually rather get an extra hour of sleep than see another band I’m not really into. But I’m really glad I got to see Skeletonbreath, because I can’t imagine I would have found out about them otherwise, and they’re rad. Go check them out.

Recommended

Concert venues with table service. I think Jonathan Coulton is the only touring musician I listen to whose shows are usually seated rather than just a big general admission pit (as is pretty much standard in NYC). But the show I went to last weekend went beyond mere seats – the entire venue was full of actual tables, and these tables were attended to by charming waitstaff who brought me snacks and drinks all night. It is, of course, a rather effective way of wringing more money out of each attendee; I typically don’t drink much at shows because I can’t be bothered to fight my way over to the bar, or I don’t want to lose my precious barricade spot. I don’t think this sort of setup would be feasible at most of the other shows I have gone to in the past year (for example NIN, or Skinny Puppy, or Ogre). But how pleasant and civilized it is to have someone serving me cocktails all evening while I watched a show from the comfort of my seat. Also, it was a good show.

The B-line at Shake Shack. It hit the 70s here in NYC a couple of weeks ago, and today it was 90. This means that until October, the regular Shake Shack line will be pretty much intolerable unless you can get there at a weird time that most of us office folks generally can’t manage. However, if you visit the little-used alternate line in which you can’t get hot food, you can still get ice cream. And the April flavors have so far been kind of great: Fluffernutter, Gianduja, Milk & Honey, Pancakes & Bacon, etc. I’m of the opinion that ice cream makes a perfectly legitimate lunch on a 90-degree day, so the B-line is ideal for me.

The Skint. Most of the people I have been friends with for a long time have commented that over the past year or so, it seems like I do a lot more. A lot of this is due to the Skint, which lists free and cheap shit happening in NYC. I attend wacky events, I go to bar nights that may or may not be fun, I get tickets for shows by bands I barely know. It’s working out pretty well, I have to say. Once in a while you get a dud, of course. I went to Williamsburg the other night for an event called Karaoke ChatRoulette, which sounded like it would be hilarious. And it was, for the half hour I got to be there for it. (The rest of the evening was eaten up by goofy technical problems.) But mostly, I end up pretty glad that I went to whatever I went to. I would say that in general I am having way more fun and getting slightly less sleep, which seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

PAX. Lord, I know I already wrote a lengthy post about how much fun I had at PAX, but it turns out I’m still not over it. I’m still going over the weekend in my mind, trying to absorb and understand its mysterious alchemy. How can a group of 50,000 people, including a sizable contingent of people who don’t like people that much, feel like such an established, comfortable community? I mean, I understand that we all have a certain amount of game culture in common. But it seems like it’s more than that we get all the same Mario references and have seen the same YouTube videos. I dunno. I know I’m going to go again, though.

Being less unwell. I’m giving this one a try for the first time in a couple of months. It’s a crazy idea, but I think it just might work.

MC Frontalot: Zero Day

If you read Internet things, you are perhaps already aware that the rapper known as MC Frontalot has a new album coming out this week. If you were not aware of it, you are now! I am therefore going to take this opportunity to tell you to buy it. I have liked the Front for many years, but I have found myself listening to him more and more with each album that comes out. And not just because the lyrics are smart and funny, but because the whole package is really good. Front has achieved something super-rare, here: he has successfully made the transition in my head from Funny Internet Dude to Musician I Really Like Non-Ironically. The only other example I can think of is Jonathan Coulton, so you can imagine my delight that they were both headliners at PAX East. Perhaps I have not yet convinced you to buy the new album. Here are more reasons! There is delightful cover art from one Jhonen Vasquez of whom I know many of you are very fond. Additionally, the album features appearances by John Hodgman, Schaffer the Darklord, Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer (responsible for Chap-Hop History), and many other pleasant creatures. And if you need yet more evidence, I offer you a video of the rapper in question performing First World Problem, one of my favorite new tracks. I am sure you are now swayed, so go and buy Zero Day, and listen to it.

PAX East

So I went to PAX East, and it was pretty goddamn awesome. I am not going to tell you about every awesome thing that happened over the entire weekend, in part because there were a lot of awesome things and also because some of them were only awesome to me. But here are some highlights.

I went to both the Friday and Saturday night concerts, which means I saw seven nerdy bands or artists: The Protomen, Anamanaguchi, Metroid Metal, MC Frontalot, the Video Game Orchestra, Paul & Storm, and Jonathan Coulton. Of these, I was only prerviously familiar with Frontalot, Paul & Storm, and Coulton. I’m typically ambivalent about seeing bands I don’t really know in a live setting for the first time, but I was assured I would enjoy myself, and enjoy myself I did. I especially liked Anamanaguchi and was pleased to discover they’re from my own NYC. I hope to see them again soon.

There were somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 people at PAX. I am not sure how many exactly, but the reason I mention it is that the largest single event space at Hynes holds maybe four or five thousand people, and most spaces held far fewer humans than that. This resulted in a lot of lines, which normally is the sort of thing which would drive me mad and leave me feeling irritated indeed. But PAX lines, they really aren’t so bad. Folks mainly just plunk down and get to playing Mario Kart or Magic, or make weird shit out of pipe cleaners, or whatever. The Mario Kart trash talk was probably my favorite line activity.

The panels I went to were the keynote, the first PA Q&A panel, the PA make-a-strip panel, and the PA TV screening. (Perhaps you’re sensing a theme, here.) I heard that some of the smaller, more serious-business-type panels were a little weak, but all of the ones I went to were great. My favorite was either make-a-strip or the PA TV screening, because the live on-stage commentary was delightful.

There was also a great deal of gaming, as you might expect. My friends and I did a D&D dungeon delve in the WotC tabletop area, played half a Magic sealed deck tournament, a bunch of boardgames, a lot of arcade games, demos in the expo hall, and a whole crap-ton of Pokémon. We ate a lot of Panda Express, didn’t get a lot of sleep, and I think it’s safe to say we all had a really satisfying experience. Even me, and I was still sick for the entire weekend (as I am now). PAX manages to imbue the entire convention center and its surrounding area with this really pleasant sense of community. It doesn’t feel like, say, NY Comic Con, or most other situations I’ve been in that have a lot of people crammed into a small space with lots to do and look at. It’s more like the way I remember summer camp, and looking back on it even just a week later I feel that same kind of nostalgia and longing. I heartily enjoyed it and can’t wait to go back.

For those who are interested, I have more photos available on my Flickr page, and a bunch of videos over at Vimeo.

(Coughing noises)

A while back, I was remarking to a friend that I hadn’t gotten seriously ill in nearly nine months. This is unusual for me, as I have a notoriously wimpy immune system. The next morning, I woke up with a slightly scratchy throat, and by the end of the day my misery was quite potent.

That was just over two weeks ago, and I’m actually still sick, which is about as fun as you would imagine. For a while I was concerned that it might be pneumonia because it was fairly difficult to breathe and I was coughing up a lot of terrifying alien substances, so I headed to the emergency room to see what they thought about it. The ER doctor agreed that the whole thing was rather suspicious, so he sent me to get a couple of chest x-rays to see what the hell was going on.

I mention the x-ray part only because the room in which I had my x-rays was so fantastically old that it looked like something out of Bioshock. Chipped paint everywhere, sinister machinery, amusing vintage signage, the whole works. I was really hoping that I’d end up with mutant superpowers after getting x-rayed in there, but nothing has revealed itself yet. Which is a real shame.

But it isn’t pneumonia as it turns out, it’s just some shitty mystery plague that I have to wait out, because it’s viral instead of bacterial. When I went to the hospital, my throat and chest were hurting so much that coughing or swallowing actually made me tear up a little bit, so I asked if there was anything I could do about the pain, and the ER doctor happily wrote me a prescription for Motrin. Yeah, fucking Motrin.

Anyway, I am slowly getting better. I bring all of this up mainly because a lot of friends and family have contacted me to find out if I am okay, or asked why I still can’t really speak. (I have a scratchy kind of croak which I find endearing in a lady-Tom-Waits sort of way, but I understand it might be disturbing to others.) So this is me assuring all of you that I am not now, nor have I ever been, dead. Worry not! I’ll be sure to let you know if I develop any mutant superpowers, also.

Still alive

It’s that time again – time to post about what I’ve been doing that was apparently way more interesting than updating my blog at all for a month.

First, some housekeeping stuff. Yeah, I guess I’m using Google Buzz but I don’t really know if I have an opinion on it yet. I am not producing any Buzz-specific content (and I kind of want to punch myself for writing that) but I’m letting it suck in stuff from Twitter, Flickr, etc. Twitter is still probably the thing to read if you’re looking for frequent, inconsequential, context-free tidbits about my life. If you are more interested in reading about things I have read about, you may enjoy my Google Reader shared items. Man, living in the future is confusing.

As for awesome shit I have been up to for the past month, probably the most awesome is Nerd by Nerd East, a miniature gaming convention that took place in Brooklyn at the end of January. Events ran from Friday night (starting with our Pre-Game Social at Barcade and dinner at Dumont) to late Sunday night. The weekend was pretty heavily saturated with fun. I played a ton of boardgames – Pandemic, Zooloretto (which also exists as an iPhone app), Dominion, and Descent (my favorite game of the weekend). There was also a rousing session of True Nerd Trivia and a truly epic marbles tournament. Yes, marbles, and a great deal of drinking. All in all, a thoroughly satisfactory weekend.

It has also been a good month for food. I took advantage of a couple of Restaurant Week deals – lunch at Tabla and dinner at City Crab. Both were great, though I think I preferred City Crab’s prix fixe options over Tabla’s. However, probably the best meal I have had recently was cooked for me by two of my closest friends as a belated birthday dinner. The whole evening was really quite luxurious – I sprawled on the couch watching Top Gear and was fed course after course of astonishingly tasty treats. I kind of wish it was my birthday every month.

Music-wise, I hit up the MC Frontalot show at Pianos a couple of weeks ago. I have a couple of videos up, if it’s videos you want; I recommend starting with Tongue-Clucking Grammarian. I also stopped by Otto’s Shrunken Head for RockEM SockEM, and I wonder now why I did not live in that bar throughout college. It’s adorable, and they have a cinnamon-infused rum I quite enjoyed. I suppose I may have been too resolutely spooky then to set up camp in a tiki bar, but thankfully those days are behind me.

And finally, this past Tuesday I saw BAM’s production of The Tempest. I ended up much closer than I expected to and enjoyed the show very much. I have a particular fondness for the play which I suppose dates from the show at the ART in Cambridge which my brother was involved in. I also used it for a set design project in college and have read it many, many times.

So it’s been a pretty good month, I’d say. Here’s hoping the next is just as much fun.

Good heavens, I’m older

I turned 29 on Wednesday of this past week, which still seems a little bit incredible to me. I don’t feel radically different from the nineteen-year-old I was ten years ago, except perhaps that I rarely have to dig into my change jar when rent is due, these days. And perhaps my hair is a little less alarming. But here I am, on the brink of thirty!

In honor of the last year of my twenties, I threw myself a birthday party at one of my favorite college drinking haunts in the Village. It’s exactly the same as it was when I spent most Thursday nights there, only now they serve a pretty good dark & stormy and there aren’t any ashtrays. It was extremely strange but entirely entertaining having so many of my friends in one place, particularly friends from such wildly different contexts. Coworkers, ex-coworkers, gaming friends, college friends, and people I’ve known for so long I don’t even remember how I know them. I had a really splendid time and poured myself into a cab at the end of it all with such an abundance of flowers and presents and affection and alcohol that I felt quite fancy. So, I would say that 2010 is off to a pretty good start.

Phew

I figured I owed you guys one more token update post for 2009, because it actually has been kind of an awesome year, much better than I expected it to be. This time last year things were pretty grim in a lot of different ways – I was frantically looking for a new apartment, worried the economy falling off a cliff would mean I’d be out of work soon, and so on. But in fact I did find an apartment that I’m really quite in love with, and aside from not being laid off this year I’ve actually just accepted an offer that I’m pretty excited about. I’ll be starting the new job in January. So all in all, I’m pretty satisfied with things as they stand at the end of 2009.

As for what I’ve been up to since October, I think there’s probably too much to fill you in on here. Lots of neat events – the Lord of the Rings concert at Radio City, the Procession of the Ghouls at St John the Divine, Mike Birbiglia with Mates of State, Monster Uprising, book signings with John Hodgman and Stephen Fry, Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm, Skinny Puppy at Nokia Theatre, Dr Sketchy’s (NSFW), holiday craft fairs, and plenty of other stuff. Plus, I’ve still been doing a ton of gaming. I feel like this year I’ve taken advantage of the fact that I live in NYC much more than I have in the previous couple of years, which I’m pretty pleased with.

And one of the most satisfying things about this year was my week in Essex over Christmas, where I got to utterly relax for the first time in months and finally meet my new little niece. I’m not much of a baby person, but even I have to admit that Simone is pretty adorable.

Here’s to even more fun in 2010.