Thursday, October 2, 2008, 09:08 - General
What's up with the cop cars that have been hanging on the pedestrian path of the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge for the last 3 days?[ 1 comment ] ( 1 view ) | permalink |
( 0 / 0 )Tuesday, September 30, 2008, 12:33 - General
On the 17th Arthur, Lisa, and I all went to the Mars Volta show at the Hammerstein Ballroom near Penn Station. We showed up around 20 mins after the doors opened at 7, and the line wrapped halfway down an avenue block, all the way down 9th Avenue between 34th and 35th, and then down 35th for a bit. Pretty crazy. I think the place held something around 5000 people, but I don't really trust my ability to estimate such things. It was definitely not an intimate show, and I find I really don't like such large shows anymore. If it had anyone other than the Mars Volta I wouldn't have gone. In any event, after Arthur realized that the olive green T-shirt I was going to buy was the one he also wanted to get he decided not to get one (we'd both coincidentally worn our Pelican T-shirts that day, and he may have been traumatized), I then waited in line for 15 minutes to get an "I'm 21+" wristband. I still am shocked every time I'm asked for my ID - it's just so absurd. Arthur was asked for his ID the other night and he's 10 years older than I am. The show itself was decent, and as usual Lisa found a way to get us one person from the front on the far left (helps to have breasts she says). I made the mistake of positioning myself on the left as that's where Omar would be, but he's a lefty so I could hardly see his fretboard at all. As soon as he stepped out on stage I remembered this from April, but it was too late. The show was cool, they did lots of kinda boring jamming as they usually do, and they skipped their epic songs like Day of the Baphomets and Tetragrammaton that would really have been nice to have heard (they played them in Chicago). They also only played for 2 hours and didn't have an encore (it was over 3 hours in Chicago), so the $50 ticket seemed not quite worth it in the end.Friday afternoon (the 19th) I met Lisa at Grand Central at around 3:15. She'd told me that I'd get bonus points - for what I'm not sure - if I got her an americano from Joe's, so I did after reading some signs to find where it was. This made me almost late for our train. There were only two people in front of me in line, but then the guy in front of me ordered 6 different types of espresso drinks so it took way longer than planned. In any case, we caught the train to her place and then packed up and headed out in her car toward All Tomorrow's Parties, the post-rock festival near the Catskills that Pitchfork said had an über unfuckingbelievable line-up and which Arthur said was "like Woodstock for people with good taste in music." (They're both right, mind.) The main ones about which I was excited were Tortoise, Shellac, and Om, but I also was keen on catching The Meat Puppets, Growing, and Wooden Shjips alongside things like Harmonia. Thurston Moore and My Bloody Valentine are not my cup of tea, though they are many other hipsters'. We missed all of the Meat Puppets set which got over at 6:45, but that wasn't so bad. We thus had a veggie burger each and some sweet potato fries at the outdoor concessions stands, noting 1. that we should really bring our own food the next day and 2. the rule about not bringing in your own booze seemed not really to be enforced at all. The venue was this old hotel/resort which looked like it was frozen in time in the 70s with old carpet, dust everywhere, metal sheets patching holes in the walls, old Torahs in Hebrew on the tables, etc. Very odd.
Tortoise came on at 7:30 I think, and that was amazing. We got right up to the front against the stage on the right (in front of the guitarist of course) and they played Millions Now Living Will Never Die straight through as well as a few others afterward. Just so damn good. After that we went over to the other stage where we found some amusing live comedians, one of whom knocked the way American girls talk (like ouhhh moiyyyy gawwwddd) which is good for a laugh. After a few songs of Thurston Moore later we decided to call it an early night as we were driving back and forth from her place which was something like 90 minutes away.
Saturday the 20th we got up a bit late and then drove to this frisbee golf course which was a little more than halfway toward the festival. The course was great - very well kept, very woody, and 2 tees and 2 baskets per hole to amplify replayability. We but the round short to try and make it to Growing, but again were too late (oh well). That day we saw Om, Wooden Shjips, some of Harmonia, got free ice cream while sitting outside by the big pond, kept making runs back and forth to the car for beers and food, saw Polvo and some more bands I can't remember now, etc. At one point I was sitting on the floor sipping a gin and tonic waiting for Lisa to get back from the bathroom during Les Savy Fav and the singer came out into the audience and sat down right next to me while staring at me and singing. I didn't even realize this at first until I saw everyone around me staring at me. It should have been quite clear to him that I wasn't interested in the music (teh suck), but I guess that's why he picked me. I came him a demon horn symbol and he left.
I actually got pretty toasted on the 4 9.5% alcohol beers I'd brought and then started drinking gin and tonics (their beer selection was awful). At one point I'd run out of cash except for $4 (or so I thought) and ordered a gin and tonic before checking this. I then mid-pour was like "oh wait, stop, I don't have enough" and the woman was all "well how much do you have" and I said "$4" (the drinks were $7, which strangely doesn't feel like I'm getting ripped off since that's what drinks cost in New York anyway) and she said she'd give it to me for that since she'd already poured it. I subsequently found more cash, and paid in full, and then she made fun of me for throwing money away. I feel like it was lose-lose - either I look like a chump for not having enough $, or for giving away $, but I guess she's right that in that situation not giving away the $ is the better deal. Anyway, I had three of those I think, with the last one in hand when Shellac started. We'd found our way up to the stage early only to realize that the guitarist (Steve Albini) would be on the other side, so we quickly moved. I was asked by the woman between me and the stage whether I'd like her to hold my drink for me, and said no, I'm drinking it (wtf?). The next day I was informed by Lisa that I may have been spilling and/or spitting on her, hence the question. Shellac came on and it was really awesome - second only to Tortoise for the weekend. I got quite into it, jumping and yelling, and at one point they stopped the music for a bit and the bassist announced he was taking questions from the audience. I decided the best question to ask was "why does God suck?" and after taking the question from me he promptly said "next question". Later in the set he took more questions, and I raised my hand and tried to say "you didn't answer my question, why does God suck?" but it came out more like "mwaahh gllbkj shdhddhh God suck?" and I even had to repeat myself once. He responded with "you're a fucking idiot" and moved on. Man, that was awesome - the bassist of Shellac called me a fucking idiot! I also got to fulfill Lisa's wish of seeing me intoxicated so it was all around good times.
The next day I woke up rather sick but was able to go back to sleep until 3 and thus only had a medium headache to deal with. We decided to skip Sunday since the only band I really wanted to see was Mogwai and instead we kept it lazy. The festival was so much fun, and the crowd was great and very relaxed. I even got multiple positive comments about my Don Cab shirt, with one guy saying he'd seen Ian Williams at the festival and had asked him about Don Cab, to which he only grumbled. If only I knew what Ian Williams looked like.
I can't really remember having done anything too cool the rest of the week. Just working on school and hanging out in the evenings. On Wednesday evening Lisa and I went over to Lewis and Brandy's for a couple hours and sipped wine (Lisa's hooked on gewürztraminer these days - I even got to ask the guy at the wine store "where do you keep your gewürztraminer in my best German accent). It was a decent time, and we had a rant from me which was all pro-logical empricism which was fun for me at least. Friday we had another party which was supposed to be on the roof like the last one, but the weather wasn't so great. It had been supposed to thunderstorm, but instead was just foggy which was quite nice relatively, but it also meant that not many people came which sort of sucked. A few couchsurfers came, some of Can's friends came, etc., and for some reason when I went downstairs to go the bathroom and man the door buzzer the whole party moved downstairs as well so our flat got pretty dirty. We kicked everyone out at like 3am when Arthur and I got bored. Can got extremely drunk and passed out in his clothes on his bed after puking in the bathroom sink so we took a video of him after I'd unzipped his pants. Lisa left to go to a cafe while I slept in until 3, and then we cleaned up the apartment. I'm thinking of spending 4+ weeks in Europe (and maybe Israel) over my winter break, and Lisa's an obsessive travel planner so we spent some time looking at flights. We then went for coffee at 9th Street Espresso in the LES, stopped at this great bookstore off Tompkins Sq Park that I've been meaning to go into for a while and where I got A.J. Ayer's Probability and Evidence (Ayer is my hero), and then we had dinner at The Organic Grille. Next was the train up to her place where we watched Letters From Iwo Jima which was ok. Sunday we read some at Coffee Labs, shot some frisbee in Rockefeller St. Park, and bought a lot of groceries at Whole Foods en route to my house.
Yesterday when I was biking over the bridge home I heard something fall, but wasn't sure what it was and found nothing missing from my backpack so I just kept going. Only the next morning did I realize it had been a piece of my bike lock, which had fallen off before as you, loyal reader, may remember and thus I felt somewhat silly for not realizing what it was. The big problem was that I was on my way to French class and couldn't really stop at my office to drop off my bike as I was tight for time. I thus swung by a hardware store about which I knew off Lafayette and bought a padlock to use with the chain I still had. I left the bike outside and nervously checked on it while the cashier rung me up, and he quipped that I could have just brought the bike inside had I wanted. That would've been smart. In any case, I got to class with 5 mins to spare. I got my first French exam back today with a 99%. I hope to travel this summer in France or maybe Switzerland (hopefully more on that later) so I can use it.
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( 0 / 0 )Monday, September 15, 2008, 14:43 - General
Lots of stuff.On Saturday of last week I went over to Lewis's for lunch. It was me, him, Brandy, Marie (their French roommate), and an Italian couchsurfer. The lunch was good and social. Afterward it started to rain pretty hard as tropical storm Hanna came through, so we climbed up a rather rickety rusty ladder up the fire escape onto the roof to get drenched by the warm rain (topless of course) and survey the city. Good times. After this Arthur met me at Main Drag where I tried a bunch of pedals and amps. I fell in love with the Fender Super Reverb they have there, though I'm told by basically everyone that the blackfaces are better than the silverfaces (the one there is a '71 or so) but I still think it sounded amazing. The Pro Reverb also sounded pretty good, and was half the price. Oh, and the Les Paul Standard I played on was also fantastic. Now I want those things, but I gotta save up money as I think I'm going to finally finish my master's thesis this semester and so I need cash to fly to Europe over the break. I want to spend like 4 weeks there, and I'm contemplating a flight to Israel, or maybe Sweden, or maybe just a train ride down to a francophone region. We'll see. It took me a while to get my pedalboard rewired, including an embarrassing trip back to Main Drag when I thought the Holy Grail+ I bought wasn't working (it was just a faulty cable elsewhere on the board), but it's done now including all the pedals being velcroed down. I'm not sure about the Digitech Whammy I have - may end up selling that for a dedicated harmonizer, but we'll see. My rig sounds great. Now I just need another amp and guitar...
I'm still loving my French class. It meets every weekday for 75 minutes, and I just wrote a 75 word essay.
I'm going to be changing research advisors, but to whom I don't know yet. I'm rather intrigued by the scientific computing topics in my class, and I'm also rather intrigued about the potential for moving into Warren Weaver Hall (so much nicer than Broadway it's crazy), but gotta see what works out.
This past weekend was sort of action-packed. I called up Sal on Friday night after having spent the day in my office and we met up at the Bedford stop. He's parking his van a few blocks from there, and we thought it would be cool to go jam a bit in his practice room. On the way we ran into this old Polish immigrant guy Bob whom Sal knows from meeting him on the street. Sal told Bob last week about how Sal's bike got stolen in the night, so Bob took him back behind his house where he had like 5 old bikes and sold Sal one cheap and now they're buds. Anyway, Bob was rather intoxicated and wanted to party with us, so we got a six pack and an Odoul's (so Sal could pretend to drink) and opened up the garage in the building which houses the practice rooms and hung out, watching passersby. I got this strange feeling which reminded me of my parents drinking beers in the garage when I was a kid and felt old, even though I was 30 years younger than Bob and 10 younger than Sal. Bob was a riot, talking at me in Polish and Russian and asking whether "you capiche?" afterward, and I egged him on a bit by showing the 10 or so words in each language I know which would send him off ranting in the language again. He also kept asking whether we were German and referring to WWII. After a while, we decided to check out the practice room, and Sal hopped on the drums, I got on the piano (playing some major fifths), and we fired up a microphone/PA for Bob to sing some traditional songs in Polish to a polka beat. It was pretty ridiculous but also really interesting and unique. Bob got a bit choked up toward the end about his family problems which was pretty sad, but hanging out with him was great. He vowed to come back with his wife and daughter so we could all sing together... After we went outside again Bob peed on the back of Sal's van and then started yelling at this other Polish guy across the street and when he went walking toward him it seemed like they were gonna get in a big fight but instead they hugged. The other guy asked who Bob's communist friends were and then they were off. Sal and I walked to my place and then parted ways.
Somehow I slept for 12 hours, split between my bed and the couch in the loft since my flimsy curtain rod had broken and the sun was overbearing. I don't know how that happened but I didn't especially like it. I left the house at around 8 to meet up with Arthur as it was his birthday. We were going to have dinner at Curly's, a vegetarian diner, but it was too packed and we were short for time to catch our movie at 9:30 (Burn After Reading at Union Sq). Thus we decided to order an entire enormous pizza and eat it over at 15th and 2nd in a park. Sal met up with us there bearing figs and then we caught a cab over to the theatre as we were late. When we got there there was this enormous pile of people all chaotically trying to get tickets at these machines which were turning off every 30 seconds. It was a madhouse and we were already late - I foolishly had thought that buying tickets online would save me time, but I still had to pick them up at the machines. Eventually something strange happened where we were given 3 tickets to the 10:30 showing instead by the machine, the security guard caught up with us with the real tickets we were supposed to have, and we all decided that 10:30 was a better idea. Thus we took the new tix over to Grey Dog's where I had a beer and then we walked back, but I guess we didn't come back soon enough as the theatre, which is huge, was totally full, and the only seats in the place were in the front row. Those seats are something that I just don't understand, as you really are looking straight up. It's crazy that they can really charge people for that. Anyway, I got a huge buttery popcorn (somehow you're allowed to put on your own butter at theatres in New York, which is ok with me) and found a position where I could pretty much see what was going on. The move was great and I laughed a lot, though I had to turn away during the scene with the axe. We then went back to Brooklyn and had a drink at the Levee, which I rather didn't like but whatever.
Sunday I spent the day with Tim at NYU working on our scientific computing homework. Then Lisa got back from Europe so she came over and we hung out all evening.
Gotta do some French now...
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( 3 / 5 )Friday, September 5, 2008, 17:58 - General
I realized that I forgot to mention that last weekend a party was held on my roof, which is common, and a band played up there, also common. Apparently the neighborhood is not taking a liking to this practice, and the fact that the band played at 1am probably contributed to someone calling the police. What was absurd was that the police responded not only by having police officers waiting down at the entrance to the building (not sure whether they were ticketing, but that would seem impossible considering you wouldn't know who lived there or not) but also by sending a police helicopter. It positioned its very bright spotlight on the building as it circled very low around the building for well over half an hour. We live on the 6th floor of the 7 floor building, and we could hardly hear anything from the party, but once the helicopter came, man was it loud and disruptive. That seems both like a complete waste of the city's resources and counterproductive (at least tactically) in that it was just more of a nuisance than anything that'd been going on up until that point. Maybe they're hoping for the craziness of that to serve as a deterrent to future parties?I also feel the need to let off some steam after watching this. Holy crap.
I honestly just can't understand how religion is still around. It's just so absurd. You are born into a Christian country, and bam, you're a Christian. Born into a Hindu country, and bam, you're Hindu. Somehow, the culture into which you're born dictates the everlasting truth of the universe? Organized religion should be seen for what it is: people who are too scared to deal with the scary world and who thus bond together so that they have a safety blanket that can give them answers to questions that make no sense to even ask since they're unanswerable. The main point I want to make here is that allegiance to any particular religion is wholly irrational, and the fact that most people who live in a country where a given religion X is the predominant one adopt religion X as their own only makes it all the more obvious that this is the case. The best argument I ever heard for adopting a particular religion was Josiah's, who said that everyone was bullshitting you, even scientists as they doctored their results in the pursuit of publications and grant money, and he was just so tired of it he wanted someone to tell him what to do and thus made an arbitrary choice and stuck with it. I have no idea, as is usual, whether he meant that or whether it was just one of his witty remarks, but it remains the best argument I have yet heard.
A big part of that safety blanket seems to be differentiating oneself from other groups, a continuation of the whole "my dad could beat up your dad" or "we don't like people from across that ther river cuz they're bad" brand of petty juvenile tribalism that is still so pervasive. It ranges from sports team allegiances to hating people from other countries, people who speak other languages, people with different colors of skin, people with different levels of education, people with different levels of wealth. People seem to have this need to make groups and differentiate themselves from other groups, with a key aspect of this being fear and intolerance of the groups that are different from their own. Fear of the unknown or the different is a flaw. Embracing the unknown is the only way to widen your horizons, to expand your knowledge, to understand more of this beautiful thing that is life. It makes me sad to see people so afraid, as I wonder why they need to be.
Hatred and fear of that which we don't understand is a disease, a disease that is the most egregious blemish of the modern human condition. We have the capability to be rational, reasoned creatures with arguments for why we hold positions. We have the capability to discuss our differences and respect our differences and to resolve conflicts through reasoned debates. It is those who feel threatened by the fact that they are incapable of crafting arguments for their positions that resort to bullying and violence in order to solve their problems. Militarism is an antiquated and barbaric example of this as taken to the extreme and its use as a foreign policy mechanism is absolutely absurd in the 21st century. The death penalty is another example of something which is just so ridiculous and archaic that I feel embarrassed to introduce myself as a citizen of a country where it is still practiced. The single best thing that humans could do in order to advance themselves and engender a peaceful and enlightened and fruitful society would be to do away with the tolerance of heated irrational responses to conflicts and replace them with reasoned, calm, and respectful debates. This would involve having a lack of respect for those who do not do this.
A common response to the WTC attack was "we'd better bomb them before they come back" - something you still hear people say with a straight face. The question which immediately came to my mind was "why would a group of people want to do this?" Revenge is a primitive instinct, something to be done away with. Constructive change is something which has no place for revenge. The answer to my question is complex, and it includes flaws in other groups along the lines I outlined above, but it also includes genuine grievances with how the Global North treats the Global South. A real, long-term solution to the problems which made such an attack attractive must consider these issues and not just be some maverick saying "a few thousand bombs'll lern 'em" - because it will only lern 'em to be more angry, and very rightfully so.
Does anyone who advocates overturning Roe v. Wade really think that will do anything other than make abortion, which is something people from all groups of American society clearly want as they all get them, something which is only accessible to the rich who can afford to go to Canada or Europe to have one done? Is making an ideological statement about a few hundred fetal cells worth the grief that it will cause countless poor women who will have them done illegally in very questionable conditions? Where does this conviction that life begins at this stage come from (other than the obvious lips of your pastor, whose every word you're supposed to believe)?
The policies of the Republicans, as well as the Democrats, who really aren't all that different on key things like economic and foreign policy, are clearly meant to enrich a small group in the short term at the expense of the greater population and at the expense of future generations. I find it fascinating that the social group who is so staunchly against things like environmental protection and for things like military adventures are the ones who are so staunchly for things like anti-abortion, the family, the sanctity of life. Is there no contradiction here, or is the sanctity of life only meant to apply to the next 10 or so years? What about your grandchildren? What about those we're killing in Iraq?
Sigh.
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( 2.8 / 9 )Tuesday, September 2, 2008, 20:07 - General
Last week was rather hectic as I somewhat surprisingly had a big deadline on Friday with my school stuff. Thus I spent a few very late nights in the office. On Friday morning when I was biking over the bridge to meet Robert in a very tired state, the screw which held my bike seat onto the frame snapped in half and sent my seat flying off. I didn't fall (luckily I was at the top of the bridge and thus wasn't going all that fast) but it was rather annoying. I gathered up the pieces - luckily it appears I'll only have to buy a replacement screw if I can find the right kind - and started riding out toward NYU again. In a bout of uncommon irrationality, I'd left my wallet and cellphone in my office the night before as it was very late and Arthur had mentioned to me that there'd been reports of muggings on the bridge late at night lately. Thus I couldn't call Robert and tell him I was late, and I knew he'd be upset if I was, so I had to bike on. About 30 seconds later the bike pump which was resting on the center pole of my frame lost grip and launched into the gear, causing the head of the pump to snap right off. I stopped, examined the pump (which I uncharacteristically for me threw on the ground in disgust), found no noticeable damage to the bike itself (thankfully) and continued biking toward and through Manhattan with no bike seat (not so nice for my bird). I made it pretty much on time too.I had a few people over the other night including Lewis, Brandy, their Estonian couchsurfer, and Sal, as well as Arthur and Can, for a viewing of Welcome to the Dollhouse (the only Solodz I'd not yet seen) on the projector. It was good fun, we drank the nice bottle of wine that Matt had left me at the party, and I got to use the new loft.
Friday night Lisa came over and we attempted to watch a rented video (a Bunuel) but were foiled by region codes (which are absurd). TPB served as a surrogate. Saturday we went to breakfast on Bedford Ave, then to Central Park, then the Met (where I saw some awesome Bosch-like paintings), and then up to her place to pick up the car en route to frisbee golfing in Westchester. I've now got her hooked on trying to learn. Apparently she gets addicted to new things rather easily. I have to remind myself not to take advantage of this. After that we went over to a town called Pleasantville and had a very good Indian dinner at the only outdoor table. The waiter asked whether how old we were and seemed astonished that we were in fact 27, and then when I went to the bathroom I overheard him discussing this fact with another worker and he saw me and was embarrassed to be caught talking about me. We then went to this art cinema and saw Frozen River which was ok. I love the buttery popcorn about movie theaters more than the movies usually anyway.
This weekend Can built himself a loft in his room on which to store his clothes and books. Let's just say that I wouldn't want to put my bed up there. I'm also a little sad at how much the walls we built got damaged in the process, but it's his room I guess.
My projector rocks.
Today was the first day of class. Both of my classes met: Intensive Elementary French and High Performance Scientific Computing. I'm pretty pumped about learning another language.
Must fix bike.
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( 3 / 10 )Sunday, August 24, 2008, 19:15 - Blurbs
Walking down Broadway today toward my office I saw someone walking with two other hipster looking dudes who looked exactly like Omar Rodriguez Lopez. Could it have been my first NYC star sighting?[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 3 / 10 )Sunday, August 24, 2008, 17:11 - General
Lisa found this comic for me at Think.[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 3 / 10 )Sunday, August 24, 2008, 15:50 - General
On Tuesday, as is the case each week, I had a meeting with Robert at NYU at 12. I got a call from Neal during the meeting that he'd arrived in New York (I'd been expecting him sometime that day, though didn't know at what time of day to expect him). He was making a tour of the east coast starting up in New Hampshire I believe to attend a wedding of someone he knew from Americorps and then visiting various friends as he made his way toward wherever it was that he needed to be to set out to sea on Semester at Sea, for which he'll be in an RA-type role next semester. Getting paid to travel all over the world doesn't seem like a bad gig to me. Anyway, I directed him to my office where we dropped his things off and then I took him to B & H for one of the now-infamous best grilled cheeses in the world. I spent some time in my office with him finishing up some work I was doing and then we went back to my place where I showed him the new pad and rooftop. We ended up spending the evening at Spuyten Duyvil for like 4 hours sipping delicious beers and eating French cheeses. We had our own little corner in the backyard and were both really loving it which for me made it even more enjoyable as I was able to share my intense appreciation for the environs and beer/cheese quality with a good friend. Eventually Neal's friend Karen made it there and we all went back to my apartment for a bit more socializing on the roof before calling it a night.Wednesday I spent the day working while Neal was out in the city doing some geocaching and other things. Around 9 or so his friend Tal came over and we all played a game of Settlers together which was very enjoyable, especially since I won a nailbiter in the end. :) Tal even loves math and knows of bands like Red Sparowes which is cool. In any event, we also spent some time on the roof and they engaged in some Americorps talk to which I couldn't contribute. Neal spent Tuesday night in Sal's bed since Sal has been sleeping in his van but spent Wednesday night in the loft which was fun since I think of the loft as a guest room.
Thursday I ended up sharing a trip to Home Depot with Sal since he wanted to go pick up some wood so as to build a shelf for his CDs and I wanted some wood to extend the loft so as to facilitate better movie watching with the projector. I ended up not being able to resist building right away and dove right in to building it out, waking up Arthur with circular saw noise. We cranked most of it out that night, with the minor frustration being that the 3" drywall screws I'd bought didn't seem to want to go all the way into the wooden beams without pilot holes even though they were supposed to be self-drilling. Arthur stripped a few screws since he thought it ridiculous to drill pilot holes. At around 11 our neighbor came by and asked whether we'd be wrapping it up soon as the noise was coming right through to his apartment, and while he's right that it was rude to be working so late on a weeknight, he regularly blasts techno music really loudly in his apartment as late as 3am and it comes right through into our apartment. I thought about pointing this out next time he does that but Arthur said he'd rather not start a feud. At this point Arthur and I were rather hungry and not in a mood to cook (or eat in the sawdust-filled apartment) so we headed down to Foodswings, this vegan fast food place on Grand St. I ordered a veggie burger and the girl ringing me up, in full naughty nurse garb, proceeded to put in $20,000 instead of $20 as what I'd paid with, so the change came up as $19K and then some. She then proceeded to randomly type in some large dollar amount over and over again and hit the minus key so as to bring the total down to something more manageable instead of just canceling the transaction. This went on for around 2 minutes before she said she'd just bring me my change when my food came up. I then got $9.52 back in change after paying $20 for a meal that rang up as $9.50... seemed rather odd, but I figured that complaining about $1.28 would end up leading to a rather lengthy exchange which wouldn't be worth it so I considered it a tip. Anyway, we had a decent time there and then went back home and I went to bed.
Friday morning Arthur got up to me screwing in the wood screws and drilling pilot holes. He ended up using our power sander to chop off the screw heads that were sticking out of the plywood and sparks went everywhere which was cool. He then declared that his having been using a power tool before drinking any coffee for the day was a very dangerous move to have made, something with which I'm sympathetic, so he ran off to Oslo. When he came back, he declared that he really needed to take a dump, so he ran into the bathroom. I realized when I heard some yelling from there that he'd forgotten that we were out of toilet paper, something we'd both noted a few days before but as of yet hadn't done anything about. I thus had to bring him some napkins, and he thanked me for the save. Friday evening I had dinner with Lisa at Sacred Chow and was able to get the happy hour special even though I'd missed it by 1 minute. Then we went over to this fashionable bar in Soho for a going away gathering for one of her Aussie friends. The bar was definitely not my style, and the one beer I wanted to try was out, but it was still an ok time. The glass on the stairway seemed like it was expressly designed so that guys sitting in the basement bar area could look up girls' skirts as they were coming down the stairs, which is something I pointed out to Lisa as we sat there. We then took the train up to hers for the night.
Saturday I woke up sniffling and sneezing and had a huge headache all day. It didn't really subside until I went to sleep, but I battled through it and tried to work in my office as much as I could after dropping Lisa off in the Bronx in the morning so she could volunteer. That night was the Don Caballero show at the Knitting Factory. I'd been looking forward to it for a while and it didn't disappoint. Lisa and I had dinner streetside at some Italian restaurant in Soho en route from walking down from my office. As much as being fancy isn't the regular way I like to do things, sometimes having a nice gnocchi meal and a glass of wine at a place like that is cool. We ended up getting really good seats at the bar for the two opening acts, both of which were very missable, and she felt obligated to drink something so I got her a lemonade and Ketel One which she found pretty ok even though she doesn't drink. The band has dropped down to a three piece, with a guitarist, a baritone guitarist, and of course Damon Che. They played a couple old ones, including Don Caballero 3 which was amazing to see live, but mostly new stuff which I actually like quite a bit. Arthur came too and we all took the subway back together to my place before christening the projector with a TPB episode. I still have yet to receive my ceiling mount kit, but we can get by pretty well without it.
Today I'm in the office again, as tends to be the case on Sundays for some reason. Got lots of deadlines coming up.
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