Listicle 26.95

best music/band review I've ever read, about one of my top 3 NY bands, Chromeo. see them in your town, they're on tour.

I am the 212,000th person to put this on the internet and I dont care, it's awesome: ....4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread. 5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month! .... 7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.

I'm making the switch, it's true. Sigh. I held out for as long as I could, I swear. Everyone in Art Department seems to be using the Macs and with a change of career seems like should go a change of computers. (not to mention I haven't bought a new computer in over 7 years and I can now write off most of this purchase as a tax write off, for work)

how cool is this? it seems the city used to have a lot of them back in the 60's & 70's.

pictures, red hot, get them.; on or around the location of here.

the following are all shots taken while driving back from Newport, OR to Portland, OR. No, I was not driving. "but they're blurry", you say. "yes", I say back. the hit-or-miss of sharp vs. blurry and the blurring effect itself would be the fun of it all.

see? motion. sexy.
some are sharp and blurry. check the trees in the background.

like this one too. Oregon trees - nice, eh?

how is it that pixels can be so mesmerizing to look at? this one feels like an album cover.
ok, I'll shut up now.

or not. see the clear cut hillside in the background? ya, it's like that all over Oregon (and Washington, and California). what you (city folk) dont see ('cause it's only visible from rural backroads) cant hurt you (until Al Gore's doomsayer's logic comes to pass - and even then, it'll be your children's problem!)

back to le blur magnifique! pay ze no attencion to le clear cut mouwten side on ze hill behine.

stop the car. I just saw bigfoot scratching a lottery ticket.

sorry, not bigfoot. we did however see the following: 2 bald eagles (no lie), deer, alpacas, seals, sea lions, rabbits and elk.
they were all sharing a minivan into town one day.

they seem almost painted. do they not?

riiiight? riiiiight?

missssssssssssssssst.

more missssssssssssssssst.

the Portland Chinese Botanical Gardens. a must-see if you're in Portland. a must see even if you're not in Portland! hay-ohhhh!

Esra likes pretty flowers. it's true. you'll see.

see? that didn't take too long.

rain. flower. rainy flower.

this photo shall remain captionless.

this looks like the back cover pic to a book on spiritual tantric zen budhist yoga cooking. namaste.

One armed photo goodness?? Ohw yeahh. I still got it.

Esra, you are so freakin' adorable.

this one was too cute to delete. (also)

a new phenomenon for me: cats in sinks. well.. the new part is my cats are in my sink. we all, of course (or should) remember the still awesome website: CatsInSinks.com In case you cant read the title of the book propped next to them, it's David Rakoff's Dont Get Too Comfortable ... it just seemed.. way too obviously appropriate.

Sun... is too... para.. lyzing... cant move... find your own... damn... sink.

this photo was taken 10 seconds before fatass hambone and his fat, fat ass tried to jump off the shelf he'd sneak-jumped his way onto... and subsequently tore down. a good thing in hindsight, I guess: I got to lower the shelf, put wall anchors in and put just enough stuff on the shelf to prevent future kitty hijinks.

Esra's friends in Brooklyn were away for a few days and asked us to house-and-dog-sit. Uhmm.. we can use the fireplace? well, well, well. It turns out, all I need to never want to watch tv again is a fireplace. and wine.

and a camera. although in this pic, I look like I'm tipping the scales at a cookie-faced 395 lbs. you know what they say: "fireplaces add 200 lbs in photos!"
Esra looks wickedly hot, as per usual.

And again. oh. see how big their frickin' apartment is? it's stupidly-ridiculous-huge. Such is the life of an artistic director of a nationally known performance group ... that performs in blue. and is a group. of manses.

fire. good.

look into the fire... my precious. join us... joooiiin ussss. ya, YOU. i'm talkin' to you. get in here.

see? wine.

Esra's great fireside pic.

a poor panorama of my new roof, with snow. from right to left. the three eastern bridges are not at all visible recognizable due to snow.

pic 2. the Puck Building to the left. on the far middle right is Nikola Tesla's old building where he invented the Tesla coil. Better pics soon.

Puck Building again and a snow covered roof. the fancy lighted space on the top right is where they have fancy-schmancy tuxedo parties.

really. better pics soon.

The USS Intrepid on it's way past the Statue of Liberty to a New Jersey drydock for 2 years of repairs.

Esra's mom, cousin Ben (son of the aunt that we stayed with in Portland) and Esra.

Long Island City, post Oscar party. the first really great snow-blanketing of the winter season.

Battery Park... this really was the first time it snowed (a little) this winter.
More Battery Park. more (slight) snow. Oh, a turkey roams this park. yep. a turkey. her name is Zelda.

Kitties in a box! what better way to end a photo set than kitties in a box! have box? will kitty.

Listicle 25.S5

ððð Hambonnnnnne!!!! not cool.

ððð Coolest new music site in the internuniverse. search for any band or any song. add it to unlimited # of playlists. save it. listen to it later. or now. rearrange the order of songs. send playlists to your friends as a simple link. it's jaw droppingly perfect for worktime music listening. I use it from the moment I get in to work till I leave. and then at Esra's. and also at my place.

ððð Damn you Saab! TOO sexy. too sexy. c'mon now. (slide the slider at the bottom)

ððð from David Rakoff's book Dont Get Too Comfortable: While we're on the subject of the horrors of war, and humanity's most poisonous and least charitable attributes, let us not forget to mention Barbara Bush (that would be former First Lady and presidential mother as opposed to W's liquor-swilling, Girl Gone Wild, human ashtray of a daughter. I'm sorry, that's not fair. I've no idea if she smokes). When the administration censored images of the flag-draped coffins of the young men and women being killed in Iraq - purportedly to respect "the privacy of the families" and not to minimize and cover up the true nature and consequences of the war - the family matriarch expressed her support for what was ultimately her son's decision by saying on Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

ððð A great article on magical thinking - ..and a great book by Augusten Bouroughs by the same name (which includes thoughts on, as well, of course)

ððð Matt pointed out that the guy holding the banner actually looks Iranian. Oh American xenophobia, do the dullest weilders of thee know no bounds?

ððð I haven't seen 300 yet but Iranians are up in (facially pierced? and overmelanine-skinned?) arms about the innacuracies within. Having already known that the Persians lost the battle of Thermopylae, I had a feeling they'd exagerate the badness of the bad guys and it is Frank Miller which should be over the top to be Frank Miller-esque so... hmm - watch it with many, many grains of salt.

Moving Day - T plus 38 days and counting

---I know.. I'm lagging on the pictures, I am. I know. I've been looking forwarding to talking endlessly about the million and a quarter things i did to the place, so.. soon. for reals.

---I had a housewarming party on friday, which was cool, everyone liked the place.. but if any of you remember that rectangular silver lava lamp thing i had that wasn't really a lava lamp (it had small square metal flakes suspended in a mystery oil of some sort & they swirled around with the heat convection from the lightbulb beneath the bottle of oil/flakes - I had one of these as a kid, maybe you or one of your neighbors did?) .. I rarely used the lamp in SF and never in new york soooo... i decided to change that - I found a great spot in the kitchen for it where it lit a cool reddish light onto the kitchen for the party. On to the fun part: Despite having formerly used the lamp dozens of times and having forgotten about it a few times even (leaving it on all night) ... it seems that it chose mid-party for an excellent time for..... the oil to overheat, expand, and blast the cork and metal lid into the ceiling (with enough force to take a small chunk out of the ceiling) and somehow, shower ALL of the oil and metal flakes (they actually turned out to be transparent plastic, who knew?) ... ALL ... OVER... every-one. and everything. and every wall and every glass and dish and plate and person and flapjack. (whom we cleaned off - he was a-ok in 2 mins time). seriously. the whole event was almost more amazing than it was scary or frustrating - the uniformity of the spray, the sudden shock of it all during a party, the randomness of it choosing right then to blast off, that no glass broke & no one was injured, etc. sadly, the new paint job on the kitchen is pretty much ruined (i tried scrubbing the walls 3 times the next morning - always fun with a mild hangover) so I'll need to repaint. aside from all that.. the party and the apartment were, are, super great.

---Another fun fact: I ended up using all the crap Elizabeth and I had gotten at Ikea & elsewhere for my last apartment (mostly intended for "the office room" that never really was an office) ... shelves & such mostly but keep an eye out when i send out a link with the pics.. I'll try to note all the stuff i reused from .. i mean.. am now using, not reused. i sorta treated it as a challenge to find a perfect spot for all that stuff instead of throwing it away.

---State Of The Kitties Union: the kitties, minus the oiling, are doing super great too. flapjack has benefited much from the Iams weight control food that I've been feeding them for the past few years, hambone just eats 3 times the amount he should and remains on par to reach jabba the hut fatty burrito stages by.. oh about June. FJ has gone headbutt crazy lately.. you don't even have to be awake anymore to be forcibly prompted into paying attention to him. HB is still crack-addicted to head scratches since the whole universe revolves around any human he sees eventually realizing that scratching his head is what they really wanna be doing. i mean, really... what did I do to them to make them like this? note to new kitten owners: withhold some degree of love/attention/headscratching or your cat(s) will be touch junkies, chasing the head scratch dragon all the way to Perpetual-IndulgenceTown. other than that.. sorry, including that, they are still the same'o same'o bundles of fun and annoyance. I go from loving them unconditionally to imagining felinicide, sometimes within the space of 2 seconds. OH! they are excellent cockroach hunters (and eaters, thank you boys for not making me deal with your kills). i know i shouldn't want to have the occasional small cockroach in the apartment, but when it provides such fun for them and let's them use their hunting and chase skills, who am I to argue? let's see... what else? flapjack always seems to looks at me suspiciously. and accusingly. if you could somehow tell him to stop it, that would be great. it's weirding me out.

Random pictures that didn't get posted previously

Esra likes to give me photo discs months after she takes pictures and then I like to post those pics even more months after they were taken. towit:

A sunset in Rockport Gloucester, MA.. quaint seaside town that blah blah blah, fishermen, saltwater taffy, they filmed the Perfect Storm there.

See? Perfectly Stormy.

Saltwater taffy to the left. And the right. and .. around the corner, down the street, up the stairs, in the basement, in the post office.. everywhere.

fishermen... fisherpeople, fisherpersons.. returning from their fishering.

speaking of fishers and their catch.. this was my first full, whole, actual, formerly live lobster. ever. as you can see, i find the experience completely less than awesome and will never be eating whole lobster again ("here! dissect and eat this sea cockroach")

what's not disgusting? candy, fool! that's what! sadly, this wasn't salt water taffy but hard candy for your grandmother's hardcandy dish (think: ribbons)
saltwater, you say? sure, why not. here's some between Long Island and Fire Island, on the way to camping. 'Esra, quick, take the picture while pointing the camera at the surface of the sun'



'And another, quick! before people can see me!' Granted, I look devilishly handsome, as per usual. Much like the sun that you do not want to look directly into, my hotness can be the same way. Esra has unconsciously spared you.



Hey look! It's an Esra! you can see her even!


Maybe I spoke too soon. Or maybe I am unconsciously protecting you from my uber hotness.

Speaking of uber hot; Esra tries on the coolest hat in the universe. Salem, Mass.
Back to camping. What's camping without schmores? well.. a lot, I suppose. But really, what's camping without schmores? Ok, Ok. It's still a lot, I get it. But .... schmores! c'mon.
Speaking of schmores, I display optimum schmore technique involving no less than 27 seperate steps. Also, I confirm that the stigmata has disappeared from my hands.
Chris tries his hand at schmoring. He fails miserably, leaving some chocolate on the grill. I look on, laughing the laugh of the Roman shmore god, Shmorey.

Back to the city! To Washington Square Park.. at night.. watching the filming of the new Will Smith movie, I Am Legend. I didn't take this photo. I wish I could say I did. Cool, eh?


I didn't take this photo either. God, I'm such a cheat sometimes. Another shot of Washington Square Park besnowed with glsnowrious snow.

Esra's aunt in front of the Lower East Side / East Village "Loisaida" sign by NY-famous Chico. So famous and respected, taggers wait a few months before putting their stupid initials up over his work (usually, they leave his stuff alone all together)


Chico does lots of privately commissioned pieces too. This one's for an east village vet. Do a flikr search for Chico to see even better stuff of his.