the jobs, they rain down, like the manna, that rained. down, I mean.

famine
Pronunciation: 'fa-m&n Function: noun
4 : a great shortage

feast
Pronunciation: 'fEst Function: noun
(2) : ABUNDANCE, PROFUSION

_____After the Verizon commercial, it seemed as if the jobs would be rolling in. Not so, it turned out. A week of waiting for calls I thought would come and then another week of making calls to folks I'd worked with or had helped in the past (my oh-so extensive "past" of .. what? 2 months doing PA work?). And... cue famine. nothing was happening. I knew there was a Macy's commercial in the works for 2 weeks from then but I obviously didn't feel like sitting around waiting for it. Calls, emails, online job searching (which is a 100% waste of time, by the way. I've gotten 1 call back to about 100 or more jobs applied to - which is perhaps a sign that I shouldn't be trying for anymore office jobs, video/film archives or not).
_____Then, as luck or fate or both would have it.. more jobs than I could handle started coming in. First was the last day of a set of Macy's commercials.. "returns" days, they call them. The stuff you've rented, bought, borrowed, whatever.. all gets returned whence it came (ya, I just said "whence", deal with it). Next came the Honda commercial.
_____There's early, and then there's early. As in, the A.M., as in, the very definition of unreasonable. Yes, my call times to be on location were 2:30am for Saturday, and 1:30am on Sunday. Yes. 2:30 and 1:30. Me. ME, getting up at .. well, more importantly is me going to sleep at 7pm and 5pm respectively. Yes. 7pm and 5pm - and that still didn't get me 8 hours sleep. The shoot itself was fine and sort of fun - we shut down 5th Ave at 56th and had a few cars driving through the same intersection, supposedly for the lead car (a Honda Oddessy) to pick up his waify blonde toothpick of a shopper girlfriend with her expensive shopping bags. The unreasonable part was that we showed up at 2:30am, took about 40 minutes to set up... then sat around for 3 hours till the light came up enough to shoot. The same the next day. Among other things, I was in charge of walkie talkies for the first time. Sounds simple, right? Pssh. No one wants to be in charge of walkie talkies (except me, 'cause I'd never done it) because you have to sign out about 100 walkie talkies to every different department on location noting what extra equipment they take (headsets, batteries, mics) and then at the end of the shoot, make sure you get it all back. If you lose anything, the production company is charged for it all, walkies typically costs $450, a battery $100, headset $100, mic $150. The second day, I was also in charge of shutting down 5th Avenue at 18th St (other PA's shut down 5th on down to 13th St) - luckily I had a traffic cop to help but 5th Avenue is .. well.. 5th Avenue. People dont like being delayed (as much as .. oooh, 4 minutes!) for a commercial shoot. Oh, I also almost got to drive a NY Taxi.. in a commercial no less. One of the drivers took a bathroom break that lasted longer than the assistant director had alloted for everyone and "we need someone to drive that taxi.. Kory, jump in that cab!" - umm.. you bet your freakin' arse I will. I'd no sooner got my hand on the cab's door than I heard "heyy, sorry. I'm back" from the cab driver. (I briefly thought about clubbing him unconscious and stuffing him into the back of the cab). There is a chance I might be seen in a white cube truck parked so as to block a Trump Hotel sign, in the first day of shooting. Alas, you will not see any of this. Unless you are in Japan, watching television. Yes, it seems the Japanese love to shoot their commercials in NY. With waify, toothpick blondes.
_____A day later, I started work on two weeks of Macy's commercials at Steiner Studios. 12 commercials in all, I think. They'll be airing up through Christmas, keep an eye out for 'em. For these, I got to drive around one of the set dresser / shopper as we went from store to store to store buying stuff. And more stuff. And more. And this is perhaps where I should warn you that all of this stuff that we buy for commercials... umm.. gets returned. So when you are in your favorite store.. let's say it's Macy's or Bed Bath & Beyond or West Elm.. and you buy that set of bed sheets, and you get them home, and they look .. used? Right. A (true) story from the set goes like this: "you know the movie Short Bus? the orgy scene? ya, those sheets got returned. unlaundered". [you may shiver now] So ... word to the wise.. do not take anything home if it looks like it's been opened already.
_____Shopping is.. how shall I say this.. the most awesome thing in the universe. I was not only getting paid to shop, I was getting paid to spend, with near reckless abandon, someone else's money. "When in doubt, get at least two different styles of the same thing so the art director can buy off on one of them" That is the mantra of the "shopper" (also called the buyer or purchaser depending on what job you're on). If you know me at all, or dont - I love shopping. How much? what's more than "a lot"? k, now what's more than that? cool, now multiply that by .. a lot more. There have been many, many, many a weekend where I've done little else but go to Macy's, Bed Bath & Beyond, the Container Store, etc.. just to window shop around, seeing what new stuff is on the market. I am a fan of housewares and bedding in the same way that some people like to keep up to date on what the current state of electronic gadgets are, via magazines & whatnot. It's a little ridiculous and something I probably never would have admitted to you all except that it helps explain my future calling. Kory Dayani - shopper / set dresser. Seriously, I want to and will be a shopper in the nearest future possible. At this point, there's nothing I'd enjoy more.
_____Hmm... so.. what else? the studio was amazing.. a 747 or two would easily fit inside. The shoot was massive - the crew numbered about 100, easy. Wardrobe took up about 200 feet of clothes rack space. Our purchases & props probably rang up to at least $50 or $70 thousand. Big. So big, they "locked" the set, partly to keep a snooping union rep out (trying to catch any union workers on set, working a non-union job). Catering & craft services was amazing as well.. delicious and plentiful food, whenever you wanted it. I got a double day (2 days of pay, ..sorry if that was obvious) for working 16 hours on one of the days - that was sweet (most days went 12 - 13 hours, so getting an extra $200 for 3 more hours than that? suuure). All in all, it was a great gig and while I was on the set, I got a call for ....
_____A Martha Stewart special that starts tomorrow! running for a month! Yes, the same Martha I semi-jokingly had a crush on 10 years ago. The same Martha that has helped hone my sense of style and all things proper. The same Martha that I've been saying I'd love to work for (her main studio/offices are in Chelsea, 3 subway stops from my apartment). The special is called Easy Baking and I have no idea when it will air or any more information on it really except that it'll have more regular hours (8am to 6 or 7 or 8pm, tops) and I'll get overtime after 10 hours! which is almost unheard of for non-union production work. I .. cant .. wait. The only part that sucks is that I got a crick in my neck saturday morning and it's now (monday afternoon) about 70% gone. Tomorrow will be a light day with the following day being more lifting and such. I'll be careful of course but hopefully the neck will be in much better shape by then. All I know is, like being pepper sprayed, having a neck crick is sooo all consuming of your focus, it's hard to enjoy or hate anything or do anything really, without thinking about what a useless invalid you are at that moment. This weekend, we drove to Cape Cod to scout wedding locations - thankfully, there wasnt too much neck movement needed. If I'd had to work? And lift stuff? forget about it.
_____But I digress... in fact... I .. have been typing for too long now.
_____and so I'm signing off.

Sincerely,
Happy Kory Who Is Fulfilled By His Employment

wedding location scouting - Cape Cod, etc, etc, etc

Ahhh, the wedding location scouting.

We've seen places in Western Mass (the Berkshires), Poughkepsie area, Hudson River valley, a few in the Catskills and this latest weekend was Cape Cod. The first place we saw, Pamet Harbor Yacht & Tennis club was .. ehh. But the Provincetown Art Assoc and Museum was amaaazing. (check out pic 10) If it wasn't 6 hours away (and maybe despite it being 6 hours away) it .. could be perfect.

more on the wedding scouting and pictures of same later.

In exactly 2 months time, I have

1. gotten engaged (...'to be married', in case that wasn't clear). it's true. read on...
2. lost my job. most of you already knew that part.
3. started in a new line of work... and because of it and the above two,
4. become happier than you've probably ever seen me.

it's true.

The engagement: I'd had it planned already. Sort of. For those of you already married, you men at least¹ , you'll recognize this internal thought; that mental seed that grew on it's own, pushing itself into every corner of your conscious thought until it was bound to break the surface, ready or not: "oh my god, I'm going to ask her to marry me". It's thrilling and frightening, joyous and maddening. So much so that ... I uhh... didn't really do it right. I had a secret, bursting at the seams. Who better to tell than my lady? And so... I mentioned.. quite momentously that.. she might.. want to consider [pause] thinking about rings. Specifically, either the ring that I had from .. my prior engagement, or my grandmother's ring which, having been given to her in ~1931, was .. 'of that time' let's say (ie. it's not ostentaciously showy, it's not a solitaire and so it's not ultra-traditional, pictures soon, I'm sure). Obviously (or not) I knew that if I were to give the prior-engagement ring, that basically, we would just use the diamond and maybe recast the platinum. I'd hoped though that Esra would love the history and sentiment of it being my grandmothers ring more, which in fact she did, and does, and now (and then), truly loves the ring. And so that'd be the background on why I asked before I asked.
The proposal: There is a park near Esra that she and I had gone to on one of our first dozen or so dates. She was going to Turkey for two weeks and it was our first major break from each other after having just started dating. We had Puerto Rican sandwiches that day and sat and watched the koi swim & just chilled, admiring the beauty of the park. Every so often, we've gone back there & it's sort of become "our" unofficial park.
On June 9th, 2007, we'd had a fight. On the phone, before we met that day. I dont remember what it was about and it was a bit snarky. It certainly wouldn't normally be something that'd inspire one to ask another one to marry that first one. And yet.. love being that pair of damned horse blinders that it is, it didn't matter. It just didn't. Perspective. I saw it all. There would be fights to come, there'd be snarkiness galore, I was sure of it and yet.. there'd be a million billion more times that'd be happy and full of laughter and giddy, ridiculous love. And so we met, under the trellis, newly grown over with grapes. I was listening to a song on my mp3 player that I'm embarassed to admit that I've always liked (which Esra's also always loved) and so before I said anything, I put the earphones in her ears and handed her some flowers I'd just bought. She [wait for it, wait for it] got a bit teary. As I was putting away my mp3 player and she was admiring her flowers, I turned to her, then down on one knee and said .. "I should have done this a long time ago", opening the ring box. It was her first time seeing my grandmother's ring and so [wait for it], quite understandably, more tears did flow. As did champagne later in the evening.

Losing my .. job:
My company bought another, they merged offices, blah blah blah. I got laid off. If I didn't hate the fact that I kept myself in the telecom field for 10 freakin' years that should have been spent "following my bliss" (ie. tv/film related anything), I would thank my old peyton-manning-looking wanker of a boss for choosing me as one of the 26 people they let go. It gave me the kick in the pants that I never gave myself. But I wont, I cant, I will not do that. A. He looks too much like peyton manning (but uglier, if you can imagine that) B. He's 31 C. He's a former tech support manager who became an office manager and the power that went to his head from that will surely be his undoing. [insert maniacal cackling here]. Ahem. Ok.. now that I've vented the last of my bitterness about him (wait, one more: I researched the heck out of implementing a recycling program for our office, I volunteered to run it, to do any lugging around of recycling barrels and such, to basically do it all. His reply: "I dont have time to think about this".) Long story long (again, sorry) ... I'm out of telecom, I'm never going back and I am happier than ever because....

I have become an Art Department PA (production assistant) for tv/film/commercials.
Two days into my new line of work, I was happier than I may have ever been in my life. (childhood birthdays and Oakland Raider victories excluded)
The first project I worked on was as a Set Designer PA for a Court TV pilot called Young And Reckless. We created a fake crime lab as a background for a voice over talent guy to be saying little interstitial 'host' type things into the camera (ie. "And that's when the murderers took things for granted.. and paid the price!"). Sadly, I lost all the pics I took on set as I just got a new phone and Sprint already shut down my old account. bastards. Among a million other things, I got to label about a hundred bankers boxes with the names of fake crime cases, to which, I had no end of fun doing & people kept laughing when they saw them (ie. Bardard Rubble, The Flintstone Family Massacre. Balky Bartakamous, the Fake Cousin Larry Suicide. He-Man, Murderer of the Universe (which of course led to) Sidartha, Destroyer of Worlds, Arrested for Breaking and Entering. etc, etc, etc. And then I got a bit silly, running out of crime cases, I went on to: Hatha Yoga With John MacEnroe. Jessica Simpson, Post Doctoral Thesis (take 47)). None of the labels were going to be big enough to see on camera so I was just going for laughs (a great way to be remembered by set designers, decorators, production coordinators possibly needing PA's down the road) My favorite of the labels was for these flat filing cabinets we had, the kind you'd keep large maps in. The set designer and our other PA were going to label them just with A, B, C, etc... so I suggested vegetables, instead. The idea that you could open up one flat filing drawer full of asparagus, one full of squash, one zucchini, bok choy, etc... in a crime lab no less.. was just too beautiful. The best part was when I'd be doing something and overhear someone laugh and say "HA! this drawer is full of green beans!". The Court TV job was 4 days.. the first of which was driving a 16' cube truck around to various prop houses & furniture rental places, picking up everything. The next day was unloading and setting up the set, the next day was filming & the next day was returning everything. The filming days (on both jobs so far) were both the most interesting and the most boring. Basically, once things are set up, there's not much to do but help any & everyone out that you possibly can with just about anything that needs done. As an art department PA, you don't have to help anyone out, especially as you get farther from the department you're assigned to, but I was eager to be learning & helping, making friends & contacts and frankly, it's just more rewarding to be doing something than to be getting by doing nothing.
The next job I did was as a (general) Art Department PA for 5 verizon commercials shot over 7 days. Again, day one (of our 8 days, actually) was picking up items needed on the set and our "hero prop", which was a cherry picker bucket and arm that'd raise and lower, extend and pull back a 'verizon worker' guy in the bucket as he'd pop into people's every day lives and give them status on their verizon internet security and whatnot. Being the "hero prop truck" PA's, we had to arrive on set an hour before everyone else and leave about an hour after everyone, as the bucket & arm would have to be loaded back on for transport to the next day's shoot. We shot in 3 locations (2 days at a lake in upstate NY, a Long Island mansion'y house and two side-by-side houses in NJ). Like I said, art department PA's have a lot of downtime once they load out so we more or less became production PA's & helped out with everything we could. We used walkie talkies with secret-service'y ear pieces, went on driving runs for various things they needed on set, brought a whole lotta things from A to B and back again and when there was absolutely nothing at all to do (directors & assistant directors or advertising agency folks discussing things) we read or got a little cat nap in our trucks. All in all, the responsibility, the fact that we're actually creating something that's.. well.. creative, the .. oh, did i mention the free food and drinks alllll day long? I honestly dont know if I've ever kept myself so hydrated. Something about free, ice cold water (or sodas or juices) will make you drink your suggested daily allotment - all of these things and more has made the switch to tv/film/commercial production so worth it, so rewarding, so fulfilling, it's not even funny. Actually, it is funny. I'm actually proud of what I do now. I get animatedly excited when I talk about it. I'm honestly not used to that. It actually interests me, what I'm doing. I knew there were people out there who had jobs they enjoyed, I just didn't know I could be one of them. I'll save any talk about the mild annoyances of 11 to 16 hour days for another email.. except to say that a 13 hour day felt like an 8 hour day in telecom. It took about the same out of me, long-day-wise. The beauty of being a PA (and knowing I'll someday be a set decorator or set designer or art director) though is the pride and self respect it instills in me.

VERY IMPORTANTE: If you know of anyone in the tv or film or commercial worlds who could get me on as a PA with them (or tv/film office work), it would be sooo very very very much appreciated. This freelance not-knowing-where-the-next-job is coming from is a little bit worrisome. Shout out to Marisa for coming through on the friend of a friend referral that got me my first two jobs. Seriously. may the gods bless yee.


ok, more later...



¹ or women, if the women did the proposing

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.