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My apartment.

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

But first:

There’s a funeral parlor in the town next to my parents, in Port Chester NY. I have loved and coveted this funeral parlor for years. It’s a white ornate Victorian house with two staircases, a wraparound porch, a turret-y thing, adorable windows and details, etc. Oh, I want it so bad. It sits on a hill a ways away from the street, so as you come down the hill, (angels singing) Aaaaaaahhhhhhh…, there it is. AND NOW IT’S FOR SALE. It needs a good coat of paint and some TLC, but damn, if I hadn’t just bought an apartment, I would snap this place up in a second. So if anyone out there has however much they’re asking for this big ole painted lady, can I please have the money so I can buy my dream house? Thank you.

And now, my apartment! As told through photography!

Well, as you can see, there’s no more mirrored wall. And it’s been sheet-rocked over. We’re getting there with help from a New York apartment renovation expert. Now the room doesn’t toy with your sense of perspective, making you think the room is bigger than it is, and then BLAM you’re slammed in the face by a mirror and you’re sad and you have a dent on your forehead. So that’s good.

That’s my super-phenomenal boyfriend Cricket attempting to figure out how to change my cabinet doors should I want to (and I want to). I made a budget for myself for my kitchen of $10,000. Don’t laugh, I’m trying to achieve it and I may make it still. I found a place in Pennsylvania that makes cabinet doors and you have to stain them, put the hardware on them and install them yourself, but it whacks the price way down. So that is what Cricket is attempting to figure out, whether we can attach the doors and not have them catch on each other or chip on each other or just rip the hell out of the cabinets.

Look! I have a tub! With fancy-shmancy tile! The tile makes my bathroom look like a W hotel or a spa. It’s soooooothing, which is pretty much what I was going for. I didn’t want a zesty bathroom with lots of pizzaz. I wanted a bathroom a Buddist would walk into and meditate in.

Now, this is what’s next to the tub (read: nothing). There is a distinct absence of a pooping device and a hand-washing device (and a floor), but that’s all getting done this week, and then maybe I can move in! Someday soon! Like before my birthday (July 31st)! Hurrah and Hippity Skip!

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My Saturday in Manhattan.

Monday, March 31st, 2008

I went into the city on Saturday to meet my friend B. and go to the bead show at the Metropolitan Pavilion (where I went for the chocolate show last year). I got to walk down my favorite block while I was there, 18th Street between 5th and 6th. I went into the used bookstore and as soon as that familiar smell of slightly moldy books hit my nose, I was right at home. The bookstore, should you want to drop in and check them out, is Skyline Books:

They have a shop cat. If you were on the fence about visiting them, this should push you over the edge.

Right next door is Utowa, a flower shop for the trendy and tasteful. I went in and looked at the vases and their ridiculously gorgeous flower arrangements. And they had one of the orchids I was talking about, my favorite orchid, I mentioned it in the Macy’s Flower Show post. I tried to take a picture of the orchid, it came out a little blurry, but you can still appreciate the evil goodness.

Across the street is a used CD store, where I just wandered in to kill time and then proceeded to buy a whole stack of CDs. They were between $3.99 and $6.99, and some of them were new, still in the wrapping. So super-terrific, really. The CD shop, called Academy Records, has a phenomenal collection of classical CDs, as well as rock, pop, jazz, spoken word, etc. They also have a big pile of videos and DVDs too. And I assume they have records too, because it’s in their name.

I eventually made it over to the bead show and met up with B. and I promised myself I wouldn’t buy beads unless there was something really really mind-blowing. And I was doing really well too, pottering around behind B. watching him buy bits of this and that and telling myself how good I was being until. There’s always an until. There was this guy selling ammonites. Here’s a bit of info on ammonites:

http://www.stonesbones.com/amm.htm

And I was fine until I saw them, all sitting there. See, I’m a die-hard fossil nut. I loves me some ULTRA-DEAD things. And I’m redoing my kitchen backsplash and countertop (there’s a point here). I’m redoing it with big tiles (because I cannot afford granite, butcher-block, stainless steel, zinc, copper, cement, etc.) and I’m going to incorporate some geode slices and (point tie-in here) ammonites into the backsplash and countertop. And there they were, taunting me with their sparkly not-alive-ness. And they were small and only $6.50 each. So I bought a few. Like, twenty. Hey, you’re not my mother, shoosh you! All my pride in my restraint went right out the window. But who cares, I got ammonites! Whoo hoo!

After B. and I had decided we had lightened our pockets enough, we decided to go out to dinner (it was 4:30). I had been to Soba-Ya once and I remembered it being fantastic, so I recommended we go there. It was right on the other side of town, but the weather was peachy, so we headed over. They lived right up to my memories. We had three appetizers, our bowls of noodles, and three desserts. The appetizer that I’m still dreaming of was the pork belly with a poached egg in sweet soy sauce. I don’t normally eat meat, but I would eat this everyday for the rest of my life. Ohhh, it was melt-in-your-mouth good. The dessert that I thought was the best was the honey wasabi ice cream. The honey and the creamy ice cream nicely balanced the ping! the wasabi put in your mouth. Oh, and we showed up as they opened the door for dinner. Halfway through the appetizers the place was full and by the time we left there was a long line. So if you ever go there, get there early. Like, when they open.

I would like to thank B. for putting up with my constant prodding during the bead show and when we were walking around the city. He has a nice quiet child, so I can’t imagine he is accustomed to someone going, “Oooh! Oooh! Lookit!” every three seconds. Bless his patient soul. I bet he went home and bought stock in Ritalin. Or joined a monastery that has a vow of silence so people weren’t JABBERING AT HIM ALL DAY. But anyway, thanks B. Next time I’ll bring my muzzle.

Posted in Nature, New York, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | No Comments »

I must be in Hawaii, ‘cuz look at all this spam! (Hey, they can’t all be winners.)

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

I love watching the evolution of spam, as you three readers well know. Now the spammers are clearly just looking through dictionaries to try to find random words and they are picking just the BEST fake names. Here, allow me to give you a sampling:

Maury Hardy
octavian apastron caribbee gadzooks sidenote crannog apocryphalness monotheist

Dixie Mendez
outmantle drukpa thinginess multirotation gyracanthus disguisal els osteophytic

Kermit Chaney
paxillary neurilemmal sublime horned duchess moltenly underprivileged prestimulus

Sterling Sargent
thermoelectricity chairmaker typometry semishirker barbarical chilitis benefactor myoid

It reminds me of those make-yer-own-poetry magnets that were so popular in the 90s. I’m particularly partial to the “sublime horned duchess” who is “moltenly underprivileged”. That must suck for her.

I’ve been working freelance in the city lately, and I must admit it isn’t the greatest commute from the ‘burbs (an hour and a half, door to door). But as I’m approaching the office, I am greeted by this sculpture everyday and it makes me so happy:

An owl! It’s like they knew I would be working here and they put that there just for me! New York is so thoughtful sometimes.

Addition: I left work late the other night, and get this: the owl’s eyes have green lights in them and at night they blink on and off! Green lights! Demonic owl sculpture! I… I don’t even have words for my joy.

Posted in New York, Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | 1 Comment »

I must have this.

Friday, February 29th, 2008

In my perusings of The Internette, I found this picture, and now I must find these bathroom signs, for they are so very rad:

Find these for me, and you will be most handsomely rewarded. Well, I’ll pay whatever they cost. But I’ll be really really happy and that’s a reward in itself. Kinda.

Posted in Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | 1 Comment »

I am sad.

Monday, February 18th, 2008

I’ve worked in Flash for a long time. The Actionscript was pretty much always the same. If you wanted a button to go to something, you typed in this:

See? It’s almost a sentence. “On release of the button, go to and play the scene named contact, starting at frame 1.” It was the only damn code I knew. Now in Flash CS3, they’ve changed things SOLELY to make my life harder. Now, to get a button to do the same thing as above, you have to type this:

Why is the word “void” in there? I don’t want to void anything. It says MouseEvent three times. Why? I have to add an EventListener. Huh? I liked my “onRelease” better. But technology soldiers on, sometimes at the expense of designers who like their code to resemble sentences. Alas.

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The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

Friday, February 15th, 2008

A dog won. I know, shocker. But really, it was a hoot. See, last year a standard poodle was was the winner in the non-sporting group and a poodle won the toy group. This year, same thing. That’s not fair to the other dogs who were showin’ their stuff. So people are fed up with the poodlage. My area apparently was the heckler’s section. We all rooted for anything that wasn’t a poodle. Some guy in the next section yelled, “Poodle!” at one point and the woman in front of me yelled some very unkind things about poodles back. Oh, and as you can expect, dog fanciers are insane. The woman behind me has a yorkshire terrier. She was talking about how her yorkie goes on wine tastings to different wineries and writes a blog about what wine is good. The dog. Has a wine blog. She rates wine. The dog. I’m just making sure you get this.

Oh, I tried the fair trade organic strawberry balsamic truffles and they were not great. I mean, the strawberry part and the chocolate part and even the balsamic part were delicious, but it had a creamy center and that made it too rich and gloppy. But I’d be willing to try another company’s strawberry balsamic truffles if they didn’t have a creamy, goopy center.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, New York, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | No Comments »

Another chocolate show! Stuff more chocolate in my gaping maw! I am a hellmouth! For chocolate!

Monday, February 11th, 2008

For those of you whose mothers are not art historians and did not drag you to every museum in the western world to look at paintings painted by people who are very, very dead right now, a hellmouth is this:

http://www.krepcio.com/vitreosity/archives/screen-hellmouthDET.jpg

It’s a mouth that opens to hell and people fall in. But in my case, it was chocolate.

So Snorth and I went to the Palisades Mall (greatest mall EVAR) for a chocolate show that was being held there. We figured that even if we didn’t buy anything, the entrance fee goes to help developmentally disabled people, so good karma points for us there. But we did buy things, quite a few things. Not only were there chocolatiers, there was wine people and cheese people and baked-goods people. We were walking around and I saw a guy selling maple-syrup products. And he was spinning maple syrup into cotton candy, so hell, I had to get that. It was good, but my brain kept saying, “This is cotton candy! This should taste like incredibly fake raspberry! And be blue! I don’t understand!” I think I like maple candy better. But the best part for me was at the very end. I saw an older woman walking around eating a pickle on a stick, and I accosted her and demanded she tell me where she acquired this pickle. She told me at the end of the row, so I zipped down to the end of the row and sure enough, one of my most beloved things greeted me, a Lower East Side jewish pickle vendor. I was in heaven. I made little squealing noises while I made my pickle purchases (new pickles for my mom, sauerkraut for my dad, pickled tomatoes for me). I later noticed the chocolate-covered pickles they were selling and was slightly appalled and a little intrigued, but I had run out of money and so (probably wisely) did not purchase one.

Let me explain. My father grew up in New York in the 30s and 40s, so he is all about the bialies and knishes and pickles and other Eastern European immigrant food. Every so often he gets the cravings, so we drive down to the Lower East Side and pick up an insane amount of pickled goodness from one of the vendors and then the Buick smells of brine and vinegar for a week. Once, we went down near Passover. Passover, for those of you that don’t know, has horseradish playing a big role in it. Outside the pickle vendor was a man wearing a Vietnam-era gas mask. He was standing in front of what looked like a small wood chipper and he was pushing horseradish roots into the wood chipper and putting the final product in jars. I thought he was crazy until the wind shifted. I was standing a good ten feet away and the air, it BURNED. Through tearing eyes and drippy nose, I silently apologized to gas-mask-man for mocking his headgear. And I had a new appreciation for pepper spray. Owie owie.

Oh, and I did buy some chocolate at the chocolate show. Organic, fair trade strawberry-balsamic truffles. I haven’t tried them yet, but I’ll tell you if they’re good or not.

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Octoberfest picture.

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

I keep telling people about this picture I saw online of a guy at Octoberfest in Munich who:

1) was on a ladder and

2) was playing a tuba with one hand and his foot

3) so he could hold his beer stein in his other hand.

Did I mention he was was on a ladder? I tell people about this picture all the time, and thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, it has been found:

That is a devotion to beer I cannot even fathom.

Similiar but different: if you’re ever in Las Vegas, go to the Hofbrauhaus. Seriously. It’s phenomenal. Cricket, Cricket’s sister and I ate there when we were in Vegas and it was terrific food and the whole staff was German (we were served by Karin). They played that “Ricola!!” alp horn and an accordian and everyone wore leiderhosen – absolutely terrific.

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A big weekend. One might call it Giant. Also, spam.

Monday, February 4th, 2008

I receive a great deal of spam on this website. These are the titles of the last four spammy messages:

Kyjasghg

Ytnfskvu

Wwxukkrf

Bwhjeawz

I feel like they’re not trying anymore. It looks like someone passed out and tipped face-forward onto their keyboard. It looks like a drunk guy typing in Welsh. Stop that.

So, Giants. First, I saw They Might Be Giants on Saturday night. I wasn’t supposed to see them, I didn’t have a ticket. Cricket was going with his best friend Pabby. However, Pabby’s wife went into labor the night before and Cricket couldn’t find anyone else to go, so I got Pabby’s ticket. Don’t get me wrong, I love They Might Be Giants. I just don’t care for live music very much. It’s loud, people are blocking my view, I have to put on pants to go out, blah blah blah.

(Funny addition: Pabby’s baby was born at 4:00 in the afternoon and my first reaction was, “Good! Now he can go to the concert at 8:00!” Cricket had to explain to me that no, he can’t. I have little to no motherly instinct, so it never occurred to me that he should spend the rest of the day with the woman who just pushed the fruit of his loins out into the world.)

So I went to the concert. It was lovely to see They Might Be Giants again, they were my first concert when I was seventeen. They sang several songs I could sing along to, so that was fun. I forgot how much I liked them. Now I’ve been listening to them nonstop for two days. It’s like reuniting with an old friend.

The next day was the Super Bowl. I went to my friend M’s apartment in Brooklyn to watch the game and eat a festive medley of cuisine including homemade jalepeno poppers (excellent, with beer batter, num num). I decided to root for the New York Giants because I had seen They Might Be Giants in New York City the night before and it seemed like there was a theme going. I don’t really give a crap about football, so that seemed like a good enough reason. We made a valiant attempt to watch the game (“They’re flinging the spheroid! Huzzah!”) but by halftime it became a brutal chore for many of us. Two members of the party left during the first half to go play pool. Yeah, we were a devoted footballin’ crowd. Then M’s girlfriend (who had baked cupcakes with green icing to look like the field and other cupcakes with the team’s logos – delicious and pertinent, both things I like in my dessert items) insisted we watch Spike’s halftime show, which was an egg and ham eating contest. It was horrifying. I had to look away from the screen repeatedly. There was a guy eating the ham (I think he was the winner after snorking down SEVEN POUNDS of ham in however many minutes) who had honey glaze and sweat all over his face. He was jumping up and down while shoveling the ham in, oh, it was bad. I blame Cablevision for this. If we had received Animal Planet we would have been watching the Puppy Bowl, but no, I had to watch bloated freaks inhaling food in a way that is NOT RIGHT. Shortly after that, Cricket and I headed for home in order for me to catch the special episode of House (which was excellent, Mira Sorvino was on it, good stuff). It was a good weekend. And yay for my team with the winning. Whoo hoo.

Posted in Activitays, New York, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Bad Blogger Jessica, Batman Begins, and Pigeons.

Friday, January 18th, 2008

I know it’s been eons since I wrote anything, but there are a few reasons for that. One, nothing that interesting has happened recently, if you don’t count the fact that my bathroom redo-ers had to submit draftings to the City of White Plains and they may not approve my bathroom redo for a month or two, which SUCKS. Two, I’ve been working a freelance job in Manhattan at a big ad agency and I don’t get home until 8:30. Then I snork down some food, watch something on TV for fifteen minutes and fall asleep on the couch. Good times, good times. So, between the nothing-of-interest-to-share and the tired-when-I-get-home, I’ve been neglecting the ole bloggybloo. I promised pictures of my new apartment and I shall deliver. I also have some purses that I painted that I will take pictures of as well and then, THEN my friends, there will be cool things to look at.
At work when there is nothing to do I watch illegally uploaded films hosted in China. They’re not very good quality and they have Chinese subtitles at the bottom, but whatever, they’re free and I’m trying to keep myself occupied during the lulls. I’m very excited to see the new Batman movie with Heath Ledger as The Joker (he looks cah-RAZEE in the preview), so I watched the Batman movie from 2005, Batman Begins. Umm, did anyone else think that it was kinda not so good? Like stilted acting and bad plot and whatnot? If you have the opportunity to see it, go ahead and pass. It’s… well, “bad” is a strong term. It’s just not very good. Let’s all pray Crazy Joker Heath will be better. Here’s the preview for the new Batman movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk1Tz5bumhw

See? Cah-RAZEE.

I’m also reading a book called Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird. I like books about things. I’ve read:
Salt: A World History
The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries
Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadaver
A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis
Jewels: A Secret History
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

So right now, I’m reading about pigeons. I’ve learned a great deal about pigeons. I now consider myself very knowledgable on the rock dove. One thing that amuses and horrifies me is how, predictably, people decided to take genetics into their own hands and through selective breeding, made some of the weirdest-looking pigeons ever. For example, the fantail. The fantail is a nice bird, except that its chest is so big it can barely see over it. Eating has got to be a problem. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLMaCZ6IlgA&feature=related

Yeah. That’s the Pekinese of the pigeon world. Not good, people. Also, there’s a pigeon out there called a parlor roller. It rolls. Backwards. On the ground. No one knows why. Some people think it’s pigeon OCD. People get together and race their parlor rollers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1gXvYTu0f0

I don’t get it either. Pigeons is a very raw book, because people are very mean to pigeons and it addresses all of that. But if you’re interested in learning about them, I recommend it.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., Nature, Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

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