Imperial, shmimperial, I'm the freakin' Shogun!

And away we went, riding our trusty (or is that rusty?) steeds towards the palace to rescue the Princess Fiona. But first we stopped alongside the lovely river that runs through Kyoto to call Mikey for his 24th birthday. Whoohooo!
The river:



On the phone with Mikey:

and another pic by the river that's just cool. click on it for a full size, if you didn't know that...

We rode on, hoping to be able to get "permission" to go on a free tour of the Imperial Palace Grounds. You have to apply, which means filling out a form. We had tried online, but it said it was completely full. Figuring we had a chance anyway, we went to the Imperial Household Agency and gave it our best shot. After much cajoling, bribery, and finally just filling out the form, we were given permission for the 2 o'clock tour. This gave us enough time to go to the tofuya, or tofu shop that the owner of the restaurant had told us to stop into.
Sweet.
Or neutral, as tofu tends to be. We rode over there, and found it pretty easily, not something that seems to happen a lot, especially when using the Lonely Planet guide. Have I mentioned that their maps are really bad? And that the addresses they give tend not to be right? Well, it deserves mentioning again.
We managed to make ourselves understood to the tofu makers, and they were pretty impressed with the fact that I was willing to part with Miriam for so few soybeans. After a few more tries, they understood that I was actually telling them that my father used to make tofu and had learned from a book. This impressed them even more.
Here's a vat of fresh tofu:

Mmmmm...so creamy and delicious. This is my creamy and delicious face.

After this nutritious breakfast (the original breakfast of champions - ask any yokozuna), we figured we had enough time to ride out to the Kinkakuji Temple, or Golden Pavilion. We didn't and figured that out about 20 really hot minutes into the ride. You may not know this, but it is really really really hot here in Kyoto, with basically 100% humidity. This means that it's very hot, and it rains for minutes at a time - sometimes very hard, sometimes just sprinkle, but all day, on and off. Very different. The moisture in the air is very much so.

So we rode back to the Imperial Palace, parked the bikes and took a cab to the Golden Pavilion. It's a famous place, not only for being gold (plated - cheap bastards), but because in 1950 it was burned to the ground by a young apprentice monk, for reasons that are unclear. He may have been overcome with some emotion. Or he tossed a cigarette butt in the wrong place. Which is why the warnings on cigarette packs here speak about how they are hazardous to your temple. They rebuilt the temple, and you would never know that just 50-some years ago, the place was an insurance-monks dream.
Here's the temple - it reflects too:

I forgot to say this earlier, but we had a plan to meet up with a friend of a college friend of Miriams, a tour guide named Michiko. She was coming with us to the Imperial Palace, and on to Nijo Palace afterwards.
We left the Golden Pavilion, and realized we had plum run out of cash. I say "plum", because the Japanese use plum paste in various ways, mostly pickled. They call it umeboshi. We had some travelers cheques and managed to find a bank to cash them. They took their time approving us, and we just made it to the Imperial Palace on time.
We met up with Michiko and joined the tour, which was pretty neat.
Here's us with Michiko:
And here's Miriam - I'm a big fan.

The palace is full of very cool buildings, none of which we could go in, but we heard about how they look on the inside. I'm sure you can just picture it.

In fact, picture this:
And this:
And here's a garden from inside:
And here we are, keeping cool:

Overall one of the best palaces I've been to.

After the Imperial Palace, we headed over to the Nijo Palace with Michiko, where she gave us a great tour of the place. By the way, the Japanese should really watch more Disney movies before they start calling these places "palaces". I mean, come on.
They did have these very cool floors called "nightingales" that were designed to make little chirping sounds as you walked on them so that the Shogun would be warned when someone was coming.
Here's what they look like from the bottom:

The shogun, by the way, was the military leader of Japan, under the Emperor. At some point, he took total control and made the emperor the titular head. The Meiji Restoration changed all that.

Here's a nice garden from the Nijo Palace, and another building from in the palace:





After the Nijo Palace, we went back to our hotel and passed out for a while. We wanted to go check out this hour-long performance of different Japanese artforms, such as flower arranging, Geisha-dancing, comedy, and English-translating. The show turned out to be pretty weak, but we both convinced ourselves it was "worth seeing." After the show, we took part in a tea ceremony, which was actually pretty cool. I can't imagine having to go through that every time I wanted tea, however. I think the Japanese don't want to either, which is why it's now just a ceremony.

A little dinner, a few drinks and off to bed.

So that was that. Another nice day in Japanland.


Oh yeah, this was a shrine we passed in the street. There were statues of pigs all over the place.

Here's some random videos

A Pachinko Parlor. They sit and watch balls fall around, while going deaf and insane. And pay lots of money in order to do so.




This here is some of the Tsujiki Fish Market insanity.
They drive these carts around and try to not kill each other



Here's a short clip of a guy we happened to see gonging the gong at the Nikko shrine. It was interesting because he would gong it, then move one little counter over to keep track of how many gongs he had gonged, then look at his watch to count how long the gong had gonged.




The Harajuku girls. They are very...interesting.

Commodore Perry very merry

Kyoto is beautiful. Pretty, picturesque, and calm. Yesterday we rode our bikes (yes, we have bikes here too! The hotel where we are staying, which, incidentally, has a pay TV in the room, gave them to us for free!) down this willow tree lined narrow street that is cut in half by a river and there is no railing from the street to the river. At night you can barely see where street ends and water begins. In America, this would be grounds for a thousand lawsuits.
The view from our window:


We were searching for this vegetarian restaurant, but unfortunately, I was looking at the wrong "fork" icon on our Lonely Planet map, and led us in the wrong direction. Fortunately, this led us to stumble on a tofu restaurant where we ate cold tofu, hot tofu, tofu skimmings, and tofu skewers. Zack was in heaven. I thought it was pretty good, too. As we left, Zack told the owner of the restaurant--who spoke pretty good English -- about how his dad used to make tofu in the '70's in Canada, and the owner freaked out and told us we must, must, must go visit the little shop where he buys his tofu. He gave us his card, and told us to be sure to tell the shopkeeper about Zack's dad. We plan to do this today.
Here's the wonderful tofu meal:


But first - the Imperial Palace. My father was right and we should have planned this trip earlier and got tickets online for the Imperial Palace and made a million phone calls to confirm it and not relaxed until after we had seen it. But alas, we did not. So we are going to head over there now and beg to be let in. Apparently, they only let you in with appointment. This is better than the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, which doesn't let you in at all. The guidebook doesn't seem to think it will be a problem to get tickets for the same day. We'll see.

Last night we walked through the Floating World, where we looked into the windows of wooden houses and saw women entertaining men. Are those geishas? We wondered. They looked like regular people, no face paint, nothing. But then we found out the answer when we saw a cab carrying two women with faces painted white, one of them adjusting her hair, the other on her cell phone. Geishas! Then we saw another geisha walking down the street and into the subway. They exist.

We stopped into an Irish pub, where the bartender was this guy from Liverpool who had moved here 25 years ago and spoke a pretty good Japanese. We were impressed to see this white guy chat it up with the locals. I asked him, "What's the deal with the geishas?" The deal, it turns out, is that there are two kinds - maikas and geishas - both have white faces. A maika aspires to have a man--usually married--sponsor her so that she can open her own geisha bar, and in return she must give the man "special favors." This is how the maika becomes a geisha. Maikas who are not yet geishas are simply entertainers--versed in art, poetry, music, and it is perfectly acceptable to marry a maika because they are not sexually obligated to their customers. But if some young salaryman does take a liking to a maika, she will of course have to leave the geisha world to marry the guy.

I also read about some lawsuit against the geisha world, and I'd be interested in reading more about that.

Now, off to the Imperial Palace.

now with video!!

yep, we figured out how to add some video.
so, keep an eye out for the google video thing, like the one of the sushi chefs.
We won't put them throughout, and make you re-read everything, though you should anyway, because the deepest insights only come after many re-re-readings.
R-e-a-d-i-n-g, find out what it means to me.

Hit the play button, and join us on a journey through time and space.
Or just some short, spastic clips of Tokyo.

Last train from Tokyo

We're on the Shinkansen now, the bullet train, on our way from Tokyo to Kyoto (same letters...coincidence? I don't think so.) It moves pretty fast.

We are definitely ready to leave Tokyo. It is a really busy place, with way too many shops and lights, and lots of people. Lots and lots of everything, really. We both had the thought that out of all the places we've been, some of us more places than others, Tokyo is one place that we wouldn't want to live.
I just don't feel like I would like it very much.

The place we stayed was really nice, in a cool little neighbourhood, and that was a good thing. I'm sure we could have stayed places that were in much more hectic areas.

I have to say that I'm pretty ready for some good ol' American food - whatever the hell that is. Seeing as how I don't eat fish (though Miriam does) or meat, there's not a heck of a lot to eat. Yes, yes, there is tofu in all it's glorious forms, but most places for the most part are fish and meat. Even this morning at Tokyo Station while waiting for the train, I wanted to get some pizza, and it all had meat.

So - what did we do yesterday...hm.
We woke up earlyish, as we've been doing, me a bit earlier than Miriam, and rode our bikes (big up to Miriam, because I didn't want to rent them but she pushed for it-best idea ever) to the Imperial Palace, hoping to ride through them. It was drizzling on and off, but it really didn't bother us at all. We finally found the palace and discovered that riding bikes in the gardens is not allowed, so we parked them and walked in. Again, after a pretty short time, I felt done there - it just didn't impress me in the ways that I had hoped. It seems that every thing we saw had been destroyed...if that makes any sense.

Here's a pic Miriam taking a picture of a Japanese couple:

And the Palace Moat:

After the Imperial Palace, we parked our bikes - not locking them to anything, just leaving them on the sidewalk with no fear of them being stolen, which is very very cool - at Otomachi Station and took a couple trains down to Akasaka, in search of a highly recommended sushi place. We're pretty sure we found it, and Miriam definitely loved the sushi. The chefs were very cool, greeting everyone who walked in the door with a loud "irassimase!!"



After lunch, and quick Subway sandwich stop - don't hate me, sushi places don't have much for a veg like me - we headed down to Shibuya to check out this huge store that Lonely Planet said we should see. They do seem to recommend a lot of shopping, I have to say. And their maps suck.

The store is Tokyu Hands, and it is 7 or 8 floors of absolutely everything you could ever want, or not want. Shibuya is an absolutely exhausting area of lights, noise, music, people and more of everything. I don't understand how the Japanese don't go freaking insane in these places.

Here's a tag on a bag we saw. Please feel free to make sense of it:

Oh yeah, I found out I'm a monster. My feet have been killing me from the shoes I brought, and so I went to try and get a new pair. I wanted a pretty standard pair of hiking shoes, lowtops, waterproof - you know the kind. We went into a bunch of different shops, some in the Sporting Good district - there's another funny thing; districts for very specific things - and was told that no store carries shoes in my massive size of 11. Everytime I would check out a pair of shoes, I would ask for my size (Eur 45, or 28.5CM) and would get a curious stare in return. Then a slow shaking of the head. I had hoped to find a novelty store or a clown supply place that maybe could accomodate me, but no luck. Or maybe display pieces for a shoe store, that would have some grotequely huge shoes, the ones that people stare at and say, "wow." I bet they would have been a perfect fit.

So, after Shibuya, we heading back to Otomachi, picked up the bikes and rode back to our ryokan in Asakusa. The bikes were returned (again, best idea ever!)
Us returning our bikes:

We napped for a while, and found a restaurant for dinner in the guidebook. We both were craving Italian, even though we had planned on hitting up some veggie place. We also wanted to end up in Shinjuku (that crazy hectic place in Lost in Translation) for drinks at some bar way up on top of a really tall building.) We found an Italian chain restaurant, Capricciosa's, or something like that, that was supposed to be "reliable" and headed down.

Shinjuku is very crazy. Even crazier than other places in Tokyo, if that's possible. Which it is, so just shut up.
The restaurant is in the basement of Zara, the clothing store. Which brings me to another crazy thing - bars and restaurants on high floors, and in basements of buildings. Just something not so common where we come from.

Boy this train is going fast. The mountains are really beautiful, too. Someone remind me to find out just how fast it goes, topspeed, etc. It's cool when it tilts going into turns.

We sat down to eat, and luckily sat next to a couple of English guys. You'll see why. We checked out the menu, and decided on what we wanted. Somehow we started talking to them, and one of them mentioned that on the back of the menu, it said what is in each dish, in case we were vegetarian. Well, it was only in Japanese, so he translated. It turned out that even the simple pastas we wanted were loaded with meats and fish (remember above about that?) and he helped us choose stuff to eat. The pasta turned out to be not bad, the wine was truly terrible, but the abundance of parmasan cheese helped everything along.

After dinner, we walked to the Keiyo Palace Hotel, and went to the Polestar Skybar, way up on the 45th floor. It was quite elegant, with chairs being pulled out, 50's haircuts on the staff, and Miriam being followed to the bathroom. Where they waited for her to come out, and escorted her back. Huh.
The drinks were expensive, but the view was ridiculous. My ears popped on the way down in the elevator.

A long subway ride home, crowded with people even late at night - though not too too late, cause the trains stop running at midnight, and back to the ryokan for the final night.

On the way home, we saw this door, in the middle of the train station. It goes to another dimension.


Got up this morning, packed, cab-ed it to the train station, and onto the Shikansen. Which is where are now.

Ah.

me and the wife

aren't we so cute?

the velvet train seats and Nikko

the second train we rode on for the final leg to Nikko had velvet seats. I mention this in order to make the pun in the title.
Thank you very much.

So we get into Nikko, a beautiful mountain town, and get our bearings and information from the tourist information booth. The bus takes us up to where the shrines and temples are, and we decline the awesome opportunity to pay a lot of money to walk over a bridge that's about 30 feet long. A missed opportunity, but one we'll get over. Hopefully.
As we're walking up these steps towards the shrine area, a short little man jumps out of nowhere, thrusting a map in our faces. His english is perfect, and we end up buying a map from him, because it has some great details on it. Or maybe he is just a good salesman.

We get up to the shrine area and see lots of different shrine buildings and rooms and stuff. I have to say that shrines and temples all seem relatively the same to me. Sacriligious maybe, but I have to say it. They are cool though, and pagodas are neat looking. Ok, I take it back, these places are cool. The various reliefs, paintings, gold statues, etc are pretty neat.

One cool thing at this shrine is that the famous "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys come from here.


Here's a couple pics of buildings on the temple grounds.



And this guy!



After we hit all the buildings, we managed to find this little Buddhist restaurant on the grounds of a nearby temple and proceeded to have the best meal yet. It was totally traditional, with lots of tofu prepared in different ways, small courses (about 8 of them) and green tea galore. All served by kimono wearing women who kneeled as they served us.
That could have been because they recognized us as foreign conquerors.
We ate at low tables, looking out at a gorgeous little garden.
very nice.

After lunch, we walked down little windy roads till we got back to town. We popped in and out of different little shops, walked off the main road a ways, and just looked around. We were very lucky to go into that guys shop - the woodworker - who loved dressing us up in his clothing. Hot.
He was super nice, giving us a sake cup, and spending a while with us teaching us words for all kinds of Japanese clothing. Good stuff.

We saw a very cool cemetary (Japanese, obvi) and walked through that. In front of all the tombstones there were offerings of different things, like mickey mouse cups and iced coffee, along with incense.

More on all of this later, cause I got to get going.

a post, in more detail

I think I didn't mention this, but it made quite an impression - the Indian place we ate at on Monday night had no idea what either chutney or raita was. Now you may not either, but you're not Indian. I was disturbed.

We woke up early on Tuesday morning, made the five minute walk to Asakusa Station, stopping along the way at various vending machines to find the perfect iced coffee and picking up some freshly made inari from a small stand. Mmmm.

Went through the usual somewhat-frustrating-but-not-too-bad experience of buying tickets and getting to the right place.

The train pulled up, looking like a train out of the future, which for us Americans, it unfortunately is. Before we could get on, a crew of yellow and blue clad worker drones swarmed the train, turning seats around, sweeping up trash, and literally making the train spotless, so it could make the trip back the other way. Pretty neat.



We get on the train, find our assigned seats and play with all the neat little features at the seats - fold out footrests that warn you to take your shoes off before using (those Japanese always got to get that in somewhere), a little table that comes out from the wall, windows that talk to you ("I am a window") - not really.

Tokyo is, as I've said before, freakin' massive, so a good half of the 2 hour train ride was spent just getting out of the city. Once in the countryside, it was very pretty. Lots of fields, farmers, and fields. Lots of fields in very vivid green colours. One thing I noticed was that there was much more electric wires running everywhere, power towers were a lot more visible, etc. Why did I notice this?

After most of the ride, we change trains somewhere, onto a much smaller local train for the 10 minute ride to Nikko.
Here's Nikko station.

ｑｕｉｔｅ ｕ～Ｎｉｋｋｏ

ｉ　write　this　FROM　a　free　internet　connection　in　NIkko，and　thekeyboardis　ｉｎｓａｎｅ．
we　ｍｅｔ　ONE］ｏｆ３ｗｏｏｄｃａｒｖｅｒｓ　IN　japan　ｗｈｏ　ｍａｋｅｓ　the　ｔｈｉｎｇｓ　ｕｓｅｄ　IN　ｔｅａ　ｃｅｒｅｍｏｎｉｅｓ　ａｎｄ　ｈａｄ　ａ　ｇｒｅａｔ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｗｉｔｈ　ｈｉｍ．

ｔｙｐｉｎｇ　ｉｓ　ａｎｎｏｙｉｎｇ．

ｂｙｅ

update: a few pics of Nikko, including the woodcarver guy. More to come after we get back from the baths...

arigato gozaimas

Update: the Italian brunch sucked, but the view was awesome. Tokyo is a massive freaking city - hard to believe actually.
After the meal, we got our bikes (did we mention we rented bikes? I am told that we did) and rode to Ueno Park, and walked around this shuk-like market, where the whole place smelled like fish. Ech.

Then on to Akihabara, the Electric District, where there are hundreds and hundreds, and dare I say, hundreds of electronics shops, all blasting lights, music and high-pitched voices onto the streets. The stores are many floors of anything and everything electronic-related, from cameras, mp3 players, transisters, LED lights, anime porn, wire - just total insanity. Exhausting.

Then we rode through the Sporting Goods district on our way to an Indian vegetarian restaurant (eating veg is a lot harder than you would think over here. Fish is everywhere.) The place was in Ginza, known as the 5th Avenue of Tokyo, all high-end shops and people. Pretty good food.
After dinner, we rode all the way back to home to Asakusa, about 45 mins or so, maybe more. It was raining on and off, so we got wet.
We're exhausted, tired and worn-out, and planning on taking a day-trip tomorrow to a place about 2 hours outside of Tokyo called Nikko.

night.

Sake Karaoke

Last night we had a true lost in translation moment as we had an amazing dinner with Zack's aunt's friend and fiance where they ordered everything for us, and we learned that the way to do it is to drink beer first and then sake. Then we did karaoke! It was really so fun. Now I am hungover but Zack's not becaue he puked last night after we got out of our $50 cab. We're going to an Italian brunch. I hope it's good.

Oishii

This morning we went to the fishmarket, where we almost got run over thousands of times by men (not one woman, I noticed) driving these wierd go-cart type cars with boxes on them and a bizaare steering mechanism where you stand up and turn a big wheel like you're on a ship. Then I dragged Zack to Daiwa sushi where, as the guidebook promised, the line snaked around 5 or 6 times but actually moved much faster than we expected--some guy from Dallas named Tony told us that some other person told him that the line would take an hour. I suspect the guy that told Tony that was in cohoots with the owners of the sushi place next door that Tony defected to upon hearing this. Sucker. I finished my sushi breakfast of champions (and Zack his Kappa Maki and miso soup) the same time that Tony finished his. We then took the subway back to our neighborhood with Tony and another Daiwa sushi line defector--Mark from Austria, who now lives in Germany. But we ditched them so I could get my sunglasses from the hotel. Once in the hotel, we had to fight the urge not to sleep, which we did.

I then convinced Zack that it would be a good idea to rent bicycles. Everyone in Tokyo was riding them all over the place, including old people who usually had at least one basket attached to theirs, and middle aged women who usually had at least one child seat attached to theirs (plus baskets). Zack resisted in much the same manner as he had resisted letting me drive the little electric car I convinced him we should rent in San Francisco. A fight ensued, but was resolved; I think what settled the matter was when he realized how ineffectively slow and rickety these bicycles were and that we weren't really riding at a much faster pace than we were walking.

We lit candles and got fortunes at the Shinto shrine next to our hotel. The way you get fortunes is by pulling a stick out of a box and then matching up the Japanese characters on the stick with the Japanese characters on this set of drawers and then opening the drawer that matches and taking out a piece of paper. Then you're supposed to tie the fortune onto these metal rods. I got a really bad fortune, actually, which I'm still upset about. Seriously bad. It said things like "People will hurt you. Sick loved ones will not be healed. Your lost articles will not be found."

We checked out the Tokyo National Gallery, which had a great overview of Japanese art in ten rooms on the second floor. Really beautiful stuff. Then we bought some prints in the giftshop. I still have a lot more shopping I feel I need to do here.

Speaking of "checking out," when we ate dinner last night at a restaurant that had no English menu despite the fact that the sign outside read, "We have English menu," a waiter said he didn't speak English that well but when I asked what kind of sashimi he had he said "I'll check it out." Zack said, "Unless this guy learned his English from 90210, it's pretty good." I still think that's hilarious, and I've been laughing about it since last night.

My dad gave this speech at KJ that said everything in Japan would be persistently similar but strangely different. So far that's true. I can't wait for more fish.

Japan : 3 : Miriam made a friend!!

We hope to make many more like her along the way.

Japan: Post two

we're here in our Ryokan (traditional style bed and breakfast), getting upacked and cleaned up, getting ready to go out.
It's really awesome, the neighbourhood is beautiful, and we're really excited.

here's a picture of our room.
going out for sake and other stuff, so that's all for now.

Japan number one

After a cancelled flight out of Boston, and being re-routed through Chicago, then a 13 hour flight to Tokyo, we're now on a train from the airport (Narita) to Tokyo proper.
We met a nice guy on the plane, and he's basically helping us get to Tokyo station.
It's pretty trippy so far - why can't we have a good train system in the US?
It's a bit rainy, kind of muggy, but at least it's not cold.
The cars are small, and there's more english signs that I had imagined.
Bamboo groves are cool - all along the way, we pass a bunch of them.
Lots of houses have the cool-looking roofs, just like you want them to.

This place really is just like a foreign country.

- Zack

too much email

i think i'll need to go on an email hiatus after the wedding.

there's just so many, and keeping them organized is a bitch.

wedding update

it's going to happen!

soon!

i have a suit, she has a dress, we have a rabbi.

and a sweet apartment in brooklyn, so that's exciting.

if you want to get us gifts, please do so.

wedding update

it's going to happen!

soon!

i have a suit, she has a dress, we have a rabbi.

and a sweet apartment in brooklyn, so that's exciting.

if you want to get us gifts, please do so.

I have never seen the movie Slacker

the Linklater movie, but I really want to.

Have you seen it?

I have never seen the movie Slacker

the Linklater movie, but I really want to.

Have you seen it?

and so it goes

sometimes I won't post for a long time.

other times, I will post sometimes.

otherwise, my times will be posted on time.

it's freakin' awesome here!

what a country!!

monday, late afternoon, a corner in downtown San Francisco

I had just left my class for the day. About 3pm, or so. Closer to 315, really. I wanted to go see the flagship Apple store, so I did. Only about a 10 minute walk up Market and there it was. Terribly unimpressive. I'm not sure what I wanted to see, but this store looks just like the Soho store, but not as nice.
Maybe you know that that's the deal, but I had no idea,
and was a little disappointed.

They also didn't have the new MacBook Pro, which was lame.

I called my mom who had spent some time out here in the distant past, and talked about that and different places around the city. That was neat.
I spent a good while calling different people that I knew, trying to find out if there was anyone I knew, even by a degree or two, who lives here, maybe to hang out a bit or whatever. I remembered that my cousin Sebastian lives here, and gave him a call left a message.
Meanwhile, I'd been walking down Kearny towards the water - maybe west? Up a huge hill, which I can't imagine having to go up on a regular basis. I saw a cable car go by and asked someone how you get on and all. I found where to get the one that went straight down this big hill to Fishermen's (man's) Wharf and after a short wait, got on.

Wow.
Hanging off the side of a trolley car that looks like it's from the 1800's, being driven by this guy pulling on huge levers that do I-don't-know-what. I will be finding out, cause I plan on looking it up. They do some cable grabbing, I know, but that's all I know.

Got off at the wharf, lots of tourists, it being President's Day, so it was crowded. Lots of seafood places, crappy stores, etc.
Looking out accross the bay is really beautiful. There's these mountains that are just incredible, and Alcatraz is right in the middle of the water. Old brick buildings on a hill surrounded by high cliffs down to the water.

Walked down along the water, saw the sea lions on pier 39. They're pretty cool.

Jumped on a trolley (not a cable car, a different thing) and took it down to Embarcadero. That's another thing about SF that I like - the names of places and streets.
Spent the next hour and a half or so walking down Mission St all the way back up to 21 and Mission. Interesting walk, I guess. It took longer than I thought it would.

Met up with Dara, and that was fun, seeing her here.
Went back to Jonas', chilled, and went to bed.

stay tuned.

Reader Questions: San Francisco Edition

so the most popular, interesting and only question I haven't gotten asked about my trip is, 'hey zack, what are you doing in San Francisco any way?'

my boss told me back in January that I had to do some training for the present fiscal year. It seems that everyone is supposed to take some career enhancement classes every year. Me and J had been talking about an SF trip for some while, and based on some almost plans we had, I got this SF trip approved - flight, training class, meal allowance, etc. Crazy.
sadly, J's schedule wasn't going to let her come at the same time.
Turns out, we have lots of miles and can get flights for 10 bucks a couple weeks later. We'll be going for about 5 or 6 days, vacation style, around the first week in March.

Anyway - so I'm here taking an Apple course, to teach me how to officially troubleshoot Mac desktops. They brand us on the third day at G5 o'clock.
I know a bunch of the stuff already, but there's definitely a lot that I've learned.
The class has six of us in it, me and these five stereotypes. Which, as I hate to think about, means I

The guy teaching the class loves him some Macs. Boy oh boy does he ever.
He knows a hell of a lot about them too. Not even such an old guy, seemed to me.
It gets a little tedious, but there's always the internet.

more san francisco, please!

OH YEAH! so jonas has this car that I drove when we went out for a lounge and pizza on sunday night.
It's a super fast car - a track-equipped(?)BMW M3. Now, I guess I've just never driven a car anything like this. Well, actually, this summer in Montana, we rented a Mustang for the day, and that was fun too. It was an automatic, but it was still very fun.
It's just a very intimidating car to drive. It's expensive, first of all. Wouldn't want anything to happen to it. That would suck. Then, it's also super sensitive and twitchy. I stalled out a bunch of times - yes,lame. I felt very embarassed every time. The hills don't hurt either.
The power that I could feel was just wild.
Well, I'm going to be driving out to the beach house on Friday and then to Muir Woods on Saturday for some hiking in the redwoods. Maybe a drive down Highway 1, depending on what happens. That would be cool.

san frantastic!

so I'm having a great time here in California.
First time in San Francisco, and first extended trip to California.

Got in late on Sunday night, about 1030 or so local time. I was tired from the weekend and the flight, of course. My friend Jonas had sent a car to the airport to pick me, and that was nice.

The ride was interesting, it was dark, but seeing the bay was cool.
I think it was the bay at least.

anyway, we got to the place and went up to the loft, walking through this killer courtyard with gardens and all. The loft is incredible - huge, open, and just awesome.
I missed a big party at the loft the night before, and the dj stuff was (and is) still set up in the corner.
The most obvious and striking feature of the loft are the original beams and supports. They are these sturdy-looking things, stripped of their paint in a very cool, raw way.
I guess it's not totally done yet, cause there is not a lot of furniture or furnishings, but what is here is really tasteful. go Jonas.

so - I was hungry and Jonas was all set to go get some food. Turns out we were going to meet these French girls in a lounge somewhere, and there was good pizza accross the street. I'll admit I wasn't so ready for a oom-tseh oom-tseh place, and we didn't end up staying too long. The pizza wasn't the greatest.

shaaaabus

we're making shabbos for lisa a friend.

how exciting.

amen

so what's new?

hm.

lots I guess -

ben and shira are in the far east for 4 months which is freakin' awesome

I'm turning 30 on the 18th

I'm going to San Francisco on the 19th for a week for an Apple training course - first time there and I'm stoked

I'll be going back to SF on March 3rd for 4 days for vacation with J

Wedding plans are coming along, got the invitations done, band is signed, things are moving along

What do I want for my birthday?

superhandz

not a part

i know, right. terrible.

i put part one down there, and rather than continuing like a decent person should,
i talk about something i want.

it's this thing

now it's not that i'm so crazy about tv or anything, but this is such an awesome thing.
truly.

you plug it into your cable box/dvr/whatever and your high-speed internet connection, by way of a router is fine, of course.

then, while anywhere in the world that you have a high-speed connection,
you can watch any channels you can watch at home and control the box in the
same way as if you were sitting in your living room.
whether you're in a hotel in Australia, or in your back yard; at your friends and you all want to watch something you have on your DVR.

wow.

now, i've never used one, so i don't have any personal experience with this thing, but i've yet to see a bad review. the only negative at this point is the lack of a Mac OS X compatible client.
however, at MacWorld a couple weeks ago, Sling announced that one would be available in the 2nd quarter of this year. sweet.

this thing has been around for a couple years now, and i've never been able to understand why it hasn't blown up in a massive way, considering the amount of tv watching that goes on.

it might have something to do with legal issues that could come up, but they've made it pretty far with nary a peep from "Those Who Like to Sue."

oh yeah - they call it place-shifting, like a dvr is time-shifting.
maybe that covers their asses?

trip to the UK part 1

ok, ok. I'll get started on telling you all about the trip to Ireland and London with the fam-in-law.

we left Philly on x-mas day, on an evening flight. We were flying to London on British Air and then to Dublin on a connection Aer Lingus flight.
The flight was almost totally full, though we lucked out with the person next to us changing seats, so we had a row to ourselves. sweet.

Got to London at like 6am, next flight at like 9am, got to Dublin around 11am.
Met up with Lisa in the airport, then found the guy with the Tauber sign who was waiting for us. sweet.

the drive through Dublin was cool, driving on the wrong side of the street was a first for me, and a little disconcerting.
luckily, they don't have a brake pedal on the passenger side.

got to the Fitzwilliam Hotel, overlooking St. Stephan's Green, right in the center of 'downtown'-ish Dublin. It's a very modern hotel, a chic sort of place, if you will.
A room for Mikey and I, and a room for J and Lisa.
Free wired internet in the room was a pleasant surprise.

So let me see...this was Monday. I think we just ended up walking around the area a while.
Right outside the hotel is where Grafton St starts. Pretty much a pedestrian area with stores and the like.
Ben Yehuda-style.
People are really nice in Dublin, but the accent almost makes everyone sound depressed. The sentences all kind of turn down at the end. Of course, the weather does suck most of the time, so it's not surprising.
Went for pints of Guinness (the national pastime) with M, L, R, and J. It does taste different (better) over there, by the way.
Something to do with the soft water or something.

Had dinner with everyone in the hotel dining room.
The food was very good.
What sucked was the wedding planning talk that was so insane, it became pretty much impossible for me to keep any sense of decorum (Europe voices everyone!) and I had to take a little break in my room.
Yes, I walked out of dinner, but it was for the best. When I came back, there was a much nicer tone of compromise in the air.
It was actually at this point that the food was very good.

rough.

After dinner later, we went for a longish walk over to Temple Bar, which is the popular pub and hanging out area. What with it being St. Stephan's day or Boxing Day or whatever they call it, there were almost no pubs open.
But the walk was nice, even with the brief foray into sketchy Chinatown area.

What I really like about the whole trip was the awesome history that is all around.
It also was really clear (to me at least) that the Irish really were fucked by the British for hundreds of years and that it was really terribly brutal at times. The English just seem to have had this sense that they were the absolute pinnacle of human development and anyone else was just terribly uncivilized.

prigs.

boy o'boy!! auld eire!

and awaaaaaay we go!!

hey! sign this

the letter from Rep. Conyers to Bush declaring intent to try to pass a motion to censure he and Cheney.

please sign.

Damn!! David Brooks gets apocalyptical!

!

and apoplectic!!

will it lead to apoptosis??

I don't even know what to say

except that I'm very happy that this shit is going down.

I'm talking about all the shit about Bush that's coming down now.
He said a year ago that he doesn't wiretap without a warrant, and now he said that he does.

I know, I know, it's no big shocker that this administration lies like all-get-out,
but hopefully, this'll be the straw that finally gets stuck in the camels eye and then it gets
infected and then they have to amputate at the neck.

bring it, bitch.

i love this essay by Kristof in the New York Times.


war-on-christmas-o'reilly-bullshit.

read it.

cold. so cold.

so very cold.

I guess if it gets much colder,
I may have to take shelter in my freshly killed Ton-ton.


no big deal, though.

I've got a lightsaber.

yes, I remembered I can post pictures

hey - you'd be in the spotlight too, if you had a name like that.

damn she's cute

we start 'em young,
and we start 'em on macs.


oh yeah - she's my niece

what'd you say? I'm what?

much too cool for you?

oh.
that's what I thought you said.

mmmm...summmmmmer

I miss it.

A Conversation in Context (Philadelphia, 2005)

< Con

and when those days come, the days of the apocolypse
- not the jesus one, just regular worldwide catastrophe, I truly feel like I will be among the useful.

but listen to me well,
those of you with skills only useful in this 'advanced' society of ours,
if you try to fuck around (cover YOUR back?? why should I cover YOUR back?? maybe I won't!)

then I won't hesitate.
I won't be able to.

sorry.

text >

the write stuff

So you know how when you’re in a bad relationship with some guy, he’s totally going out, being beligerant. He had come into the whole relationship seeming like a good guy, really compassionate. Like he wanted to help you clean yourself up, stop hanging out with those guys, put on some nice clothing and get your hair and nails done.
So you go for it, and he seems relatively harmless for a bit.
Then some bad shit happens that affects a lot of people and all of a sudden he seems to get some kind of hero complex; like he’s supposed to go and help all these people. But weird-like, not in a red cross kinda way, but more jesus-on-a-cross kinda way, you know? So he’s getting all strange and and negative and stuff, and after all kinds of different shit happens,

you meet a new guy.
He seems like a pretty good, upstanding guy. Really couldn’t say much bad about him. You know a lot of people who’ve been friends with him for a long time, and they all have nice things to say. So you start hanging out with him and it turns out you like what he has to say. Turns out he says a lot of the same things that you think would be good for you – and he wants to be with you real bad.

So he starts wooing you, flowers, dinners, concerts, the whole deal and you’re thinking about this new guy. But
then the old guy comes back into your life. He just wants to keep you safe, he says; that’s all he was trying to do before, he swears. And you know what?, he says, that other guy just won’t be able to keep you safe when it comes down to it. He just won’t. When you go to the other guy, he just doesn’t seem to be able to find the words to say that it’ll be ok with him, that he’ll be able to keep you just as safe – even though you have a feeling it’s true.

What’s a body to do? You gotta trust words, and so you go with mr safe. Hey, at least you can always say, you said you would; I trusted you.


Sigh.


I guess in the end, that’s what it came down to. The guy with the right stuff on the inside was pushed away for the guy with the writers staff on his side.


But you know what makes me smile? That even though I rejected him, he still sends me emails. Little notes to let me know that he’s still around, still cares, still hopes for our future together, and still needs money.

God bless John Kerry.

hey, here's a thought

who gets up in the morning on a frigid winter day, shivers as they get out from underneath their nice warm down comforter,
looks out the window at the snow on the ground, sees the breath billowing out of bypassers mouths and

PUTS ON SHORTS!!

maybe it's 'cause I spends my whole day on a college campus, and it's just another one of those crazy college kid fads, but honestly, what the fuck.

jeopardy

have I ever mentioned that I watch this show every day?
or if I don't watch it, I record it and watch it later.

I love jeopardy and there's a decent chance that I'll kick your ass at it.

thank you Alex.

weddings, classes, and more

so this is pretty final - August 24th at the Palm House in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.
should be a smashing time.

as it will be in a glass house, please don't throw stoned.

about classes, I'm trying to sign up for a creative writing class that will teach the sort of writing that is along the lines of Woody Allen and Mark Twain.
Coupled with my burgeoning improv career, I should have a 4 movie-a-year contract in no time.
and likely making movies as good as Woody's recent offerings.

and the more?

I'm hungry.

tap for it

what a time.

so we went to new york on tues eve, saw a bunch of wedding venues on wednesday - thanks to R for letting use the car. really did make the whole thing easier.

thursday morning, M, J and I took the train up to CT for thanksgiving day - hectic as always, lots of people, food and
noise. noise. noise.
was J's first time with the mass of humanity that makes up the extended.
of course it was M's first time, and both handled it beautifully.

a night's sleep and we were off to Providence for the weekend.
a rented car and a few hours later, it was sundown.

I do love seeing interaction between J and the parents - not sure why, but it makes me pretty happy.

very nice times were had over the weekend, lots of heated discussion on all things, from holy to unholy.
fear not - abortion, belief in god, homosinuality, and any other controversial topic were all guests.

plenty of warm discussion too.

J learned how to tap for just about anything - very cool.
near to cured her insomnia.

saturday night's alright for fighting, but we decided to go out for a drink instead - worked out better in the end. hung
with shy, and that was cool.

sunday was taking M to the airport, saying bye to B and Maia.

a tour of Slater Mill was quite cool. very wild that they could see what was needed to get from A to Z and could build a machine to do it.
turning cotton into thread into cloth into money.
it's like magic, using gears.

the train home - decided that was better than flying early Monday, and truly it was.

I'm pretty sure M and J had a nice time,

and the gluten ribs were great.

wedding balls are stinging

yep.
going on Wednesday to look at a few venues for the biggest wedding of my life (our lives).

should be interesting, looking at these places with the sharp and trained eye of a professional venue-looker.
I'm sure I'll see all kinds of small details, both positive and negative, that will both excite me, as well as cause great dismay.

I'll be looking for such things as: are there toilets? how many? is toilet paper included in the price? double roll, or single? do we get bathroom attendants, or will guests be expected to turn the sinks on themselves? how about drying their own hands? do we really want to go there?

if you've been married before, you know that these are some of the things that weigh on the mind of the wed-ers, right up until the caterer doesn't show up.

then your priorities change.

well that was fun

what a weekend!

friday night dinner
an entirely fun time
then a bike ride home in the cold.

waking up and brunching
found a new place around the corner.

playing ball (one of a few times in the last 8 years)
stretching and exercising for a little while.

meeting up for pizza bagels and beer
first time in that place since j was in college
and then to smoke's, where I've never been.

seeing a play at the kelly writers house
and what a play it was. dan put out some
pretty wild stuff.
the play was very good.

on to lt's for drinks and people talking
my neck hurt so I went home.

we chilled till late night and went to sleep.
the bed broke. in the morning, I went to the couch for
the extra room.

then for the second time in two days, we
went to brunch. at that point, we all went home
and hung around.

we went for coffee, after a while.
I went off to my class, and everyone came
for the show. it was pretty good, actually, and I
was definitely happy about it.

back to the house, and chinese food
with lots of talking and tv watching.

more talking and then everyone left.

we updated our ipods and went
to bed.

there's something missing from this picture...

you remember the book 'goodnight moon', right?
so check it - they've removed the ashtray from the illustrations in the book and taken the cigarette out of the author's hand in his picture.

while i'm all for people not smoking, even annoyingly so at times, i'm not so sure that this is good.

at the very least it makes me feel wierd.

i think of that movie 'basic instinct' where they had to manipulate the video in order to see the woman leaving the room where she killed the guy -
that might have been one of my first realizations that

reality (like realty),

unless you see it with your own eyes, is very suspect.

best tv show cancelled

so, if you are a regular around here, you may or may not know about the best show on tv these days.
i say 'these days' because it's not going to be around for much longer.
yes, i'm talking about
martha stewart's version of the apprentice.

hahahahahahahahaha.
no, not really.

what i'm talking about is Arrested Development (note the caps to denote supreme importance).

fox, as is their habit, develops great shows and then cancels them.
they let them win all their emmys, bobbys, critic's awards and what have you and then cancels them.

wicked brilliant, if you think about it, because...
well, i'm sure it is, 'cause they keep doing it.

well, it's too bad.

so - here's a good article about it.

support your local

that's what we're supposed to do, you know.
buy locally, buy from your mom&pop neighborhood store - not from the behemoth big-box stores that are stealing business away, forcing shops to close.

well, i tried.
i needed a socket wrench set, so i went up the block to the local hardwear store.
now, i understand they are small and can't stock everything a person might need, but the only socket set they had was of the crappy variety. you know those crappy tools you can find at the dollar store or where-ever; they just fall apart or don't work for the job they are meant.
i must have gone to 4 or 5 other small, local hardware stores, finding the same crap in each one.

so now what, i ask?
i could have them order me a set, and wait a week until it comes in.
i could go online and order it from a (big-box) website like Amazon and have it in a day or two.
or i can just ride down to WalHomeLowesSears and have my choice of quality brands at a low price.

i went, i bought, and i feel bad.

but not as bad as either having crappy, unreliable tools or no tools at all.

this title is informative

that's what they say a 'title' should be, you know.
it should give you the flavour, a little taste of what's to come in the post that follows.

so, i believe i've achieved my goal.
thanks for listening.

dearth of comments

so - i've been told that what i post here doesn't exactly lend to commenting.

is that true?

denver, eh?

that's what i'm talking about.

up to an ounce is legal in denver.

check it

lord gym

i need to work out again. i say again, because i have now recognized that i don't work out, not that i'm on a break from working out.

that being said, i need to get back to the gym.

well this is exciting!!

i'm going to yerp!

yep - yerp!

i ain't never done been to yerp really, not least for mor'n a few hours.


sick.

flock

i know it's all over the place, but i've been playing with flock for the past day and a half, and it's cool.

there's a learning curve, but once you get into it, you can see the potential

reccanize!!!

i'm wicked famous.

these days

i'm getting wigged out by the weeks peppered with jewish holidays

seriously, every couple days, it's friday again, and then monday comes like
four times a week and it's getting a bit hard to handle.

not to mention i'm missing my yoga class three times in a row.

went for a long bike ride today, and that was really fun. we went up and down then over and
back then up and back home -
a very satisfying ride


that wedding date may have to change a bit, just for the record.


whatever.

these past weeks seem like the longest weekend ever or something

from what i hear

going to law school is being pissed when you find out that you agree with scalia half the time

throw the rabbi!!

am i the last one to see this?
i feel like this should have been around for a really long time.
use the thing to make him floyzen and then plotz.



check it.

wedding date

august 20

ambiguouly gay duo

if you've ever loved these bits from SNL, then you'll....love this collection of those bits.

check it

puerto rico isn't happening.

shit.

that would have been really cool.

celebrate

so the holiday was nice, lido style, with the tauber family circus.

know what's hard? planning a wedding.
and not even planning the thing, but just trying to
come up with a
basic idea of a wedding in order to
start thinking about
organizing
the preliminary plans
for the wedding.

rough man, rough.

hah! this is cool!

national geographic has a webcam set up that is pointing at a watering hole in a savannah in Africa

you can actually see animals and stuff...has a very fast connection, so it looks really good.

check it

yoger

that's how we say it where i come from.

so my downward dog is tamed, my child's pose isn't a horror flick, my table is clean and my body is wracked with fucking pain.

yep, i had my first yoga class last night, and i am sore.
it was cool and all, definitely flew by a lot faster than i thought it would, and in the end i was actually relaxed.

the teacher was cool, but just a little too flexible, if you ask me. shudder.

there's a lot of flaky esoteric stuff in there too - from the cheesy soundtrack to the encouraging 'feel the core strengthening' and 'look inside yourself and revel in the engergy of the pose' and finally ending with an OM

but i'll be going back, at least till i don't anymore

red crossssss

so i did a stint at the local red cross office last night, spending the time answering calls that come in to the emergency services lines.

wild.
i had no training whatsoever, basically was shown a bunch of forms that need to be filled out when people call.

why are they calling?
well, they've had some kind of disaster happen to them, usually a fire, or a they are family of military who are trying to locate service-people for various reasons.

or they are looking for training classes, how to volunteer, where to donate, and so on and so forth.

it was kind of surreal b/c you would think that the people on the other end of the phone when you call the red cross are highly trained personnel.

well, it's not.

it's me.

24

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

the events in this blogpost take place between 3:46 and 3:47 on the day of the extended 24 dvd-watching marathon


my name is zack and this is the longest day of the week. so far.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

don't park on me!

so the other night, we're looking around the east village for a parking spot, and holy crap, there's one in the most perfect spot ever.
less than a half a block from the apt, right in front of us.
so, we pull up next to it, check the sign, yep, it's good.

we inch forward to give ourselves some space to back in, and start backing in.
there we are, about halfway in the spot, totally on the diagonal - clearly taking the spot.

and up comes this fucking lady. in a bright yellow sports car, and pulls her car halfway into the spot!
(i neglected to mention this was the 'end' spot, so she was able to drive right up into the spot, something we had been unable to do b/c of traffic)

anyway, so she sees us halfway in and then proceeded to pull her car in. this was not a good situation. i was tired.
and riding bitch.

once it became obvious that she wasn't moving (and after much hand-waving), i knew something had to be done.
i got out of the car, and walked over towards her.
standing right in front of her bumper, i said, hey- it's obviously our spot, and we're taking it. so please move on.

the nerve. the nerve of this lady, what she said next.
she says, well, it looks like a tie to me.
(a tie?! a tie?! this isn't your fucking kids soccer game, lady! this isn't a three-legged race at your companies annual picnic, you dumb fuck!)

so i says, are you fucking kidding me? a tie? we were backing into the spot, and you pulled in. now go away.

so she starts inching forward. very close to my knee at this point, and you know me and my knees. don't hit them.
i lift a finger, and hold it up, in the universal 'hold it' fashion.
whoa, i say with a menacing look, don't even think of touching me with that car.

as i'm looking at her, i glance down and almost smile at my opportunity.
taking a step to the right, i make sure to catch her eye, take a really obvious look at her license plate, and catch her eye again.

hey lady, i say, get out of my parking space and go back to fucking connecticut.





that's right.
go back to connecticut.

and she did.

weekend stylings

going up to the city for the weekend.

got some great shows to see - white stripes at coney island, and just found out about an Au Revoir Simone show tonight that we'll go to.

cool.

and hopefully on sunday afternoon go clean out my stuff from the rat-infested shit-covered basement that it's been in since i moved to philly. delightful.

the red cross just called, said they want me to come in on Monday to work the phones, so i'll be doing that.

and isn't it nice to be invited to something (relatively) exclusive??

gosh.

PR

so the decisions have been made. pretty much.

if the offer comes, we're going to puerto rico. we think.

it'll be a good thing to do. right?

i mean, things like this don't always come along.

it'll be fun, exciting, adventurous, and those kinds of words.
we've been working the phones, finding connections etc, and it seems like we'll be just fine.
the problem, you see, has been the uncertainty of me finding a job with no spanish skills.
but it seems like it won't be such a problem.

how wild!

puerto rico thoughts

well.
a whirlwind trip to PR
a ridiculous hotel in the elegant stylings of cuba in the 50's.

and now what to do? almost an offer from the man, but two years is a long time.
but then, honestly, the chance to live somewhere very different for a couple years doesn't come up in such a convenient fashion that often.
it would definitely be a challenge in many ways, from living far away, to finding a job, to being very hot all the time - i'll miss the cold weather, i have to say. it's in my blood.

also- two years? man. but it really isn't that far, truth be told. and all you bastards better visit if we end up there. 3.5 hour flights, cheap tix, a place to stay. bastards.

i think in the end, the adventure is worth it.

your thoughts? would you do it?

first

so this is a blog post that has a bunch of tracks with roots in New Orleans

good stuff

holy crap.

we're going to Puerto Rico on sunday.

why? so j can interview with a judge for a clerkship.

in Puerto Rico.

yes, it would mean us moving there for a while.
about two years, i believe.

holy crap.

arcade fire again..

but then, i don't know that 'again' is the right word. you see, 'again' would imply in some way that i was tired of them maybe; that seeing them another time was in some way burdensome.

nope. i love the music, i love the show, the stage presence, and everything else about them.

they put on such a powerful show, that it's so crazy.
after i saw them last year, coming out of the show, the feeling is of being totally blown away - the album is clearly incredible, but it's only a taste of the live show.
therefore, when i talked to people afterwards who have been loving on the album, but never seen them live, i was definitely happy to hear that they felt the same way - a truly killer show.

yes, the sound at summerstage sucks- def not loud enough. however, i was able to get up pretty close under one of the speakers mounted on the left side, so it was satisfactory.
yes, the crowd generally blew - the last time i saw them at the tla, the place was jumping up and down the entire time. last night, win even commented on how 'scarily peaceful' the crowd was. i don't think it has anything to do with a bigger crowd than a club, b/c when they played at coachella, they at least looked to be loving the crowd and all.
maybe it was various technical issues that had win peeved - a borrowed piano, too bright lights, constant touring playing the same 12 songs or so.

yeah, bowie came out and did Queen Bitch and Wake Up. it was good, but i'd rather see them without bowie in a smaller venue with better sound.

and another pic...

fine and dandy

saw the dandy warhols last night, and they totally rocked.

really good.

the place we saw them was pretty good for shows too, was upstairs basically right over the stage, and the sound was really good.

a pic of mr dandy himself, courtney taylor-etc.

this scares me

this moron brown put in charge by this moron bush.

how may other morons are out there in charge of stuff?

read it

see this? head of FEMA is a liar

and he was appointed cause he was the college roommate of the former head of FEMA.
who is a good buddy of Bush.
according to this Time article, his resume is full of shit.

shocking.

not.

hell yeaaaaah

no one does a 'hell yeah' like jay-z does a 'hell yeah'

and how about kanye west and mike myers? i wish they'd do a remake of Ebony and Ivory

kchackis

whats up with them anyway? its not like i don't have a few pairs at least, you know.

i dont wear them with a blue gold-buttoned blazer, or anything, and thats a good thing i think.

at this party last night, and so many people wearing them - shorts, pants, other pants, different shorts, the whole spectrum.

why that colour? why ?

tired

so tired.
not totally sure why, but it's been a bit of a hectic and stressful day.

oh yeah, found out that i don't think i'll be heading down to new orleans or surrounding areas to help.
even though my job will give a significant amount of time off for people who want to volunteer, it would mean basically being gone for like 2 months, what with all the jew-days coming up.
i really would have liked to go and make a difference some in that whole big cluster-fuck.
for next time (and yes, it's almost guaranteed that something bad like this will happen again) i plan on being qualified to provide some real help.
more on that as it happens.

ok. party tonight, j's new bike to put together sometime, settling into a relatively normal schedule, figure out what to do with myself, that's all

yeah so summers over-ish

but NOT FOR MEEEE!! whhooooo!!

until it gets too cold to go out. then it's over.
sorry.

that's just how it is. winter comes on and it gets all cold again and riding gets a little annoying.
man.
i bet it would be cool to be in paris.
have you ever been to paris? supposed to be nice this time of year.
maybe we'll visit sometime.

nicest weather ever this weekend. just perfect. chilling at the beach-house eating good food and hanging with people.

and the situation in new orleans and surrounding areas is still freaking me out.
i honestly can't believe the total abject failure of our government to respond to this in a manner befitting.

anyway. talk to you soon.