Caoine.org

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.