So here I am drinking the first legal beer I've ever bought.  Of course my birthday was seven days ago, but due to my bag being stolen and various other things I didn't my new ID until today.  I wish I could say my first beer was something along the lines of London Porter, but alas it is simple Corona.

  How was my Birthday?  Good, good.  Nothing crazy; just hung out with a couple of friends in Brooklyn and drank some beer.  I bought Bang! and Bang!: Dodge City as a birthday present to myself and ended up playing a couple of rounds at the party which was cool.  People seemed to enjoy it.

  Speaking along such lines I'm also thinking of starting a board game group in Astoria.  I'm not really sure how to do such a thing, but I may make some flyers to hang up at gaming stores.  There's a meetup group for boardgames in New York, but it's only once a month and it's hard for me to get off on Thursdays.  Also I feel like there should be a group specically for Astoria.  Why?  Because that's where I live.  Uhh...

  I have a new job at Alt.Coffee which is going really well.  I like the people and I like the job and there is a Simpson's pinball machine.  Also I get to ignore people that talk on their cell phone.

  What else to talk about?  I just got done watching the Strangers With Candy movie which was pretty fucking funny.  I've discovered this store call The Complete Strategist which is really awesome.  I had been going to Neutral Ground, but this place blows it out of the water.  Bill and Morgan can testify for this.  Any board game you could want is here.  It's stacked to the ceiling.  Even if you didn't like board games the visual display of options is amazing in itself.  It's pretty cool.  It's hard to describe in terms that would impress, but for some idea take a look at this picture.

  Anyway, I guess that's pretty much all the important stuff that's happened to me.  Life is pretty good, but there's not much else to say.  I hope that everything is good in Salisbury and maybe I'll come visit soon.  Keep it real and drop me a line.

  P.S.: If you're looking for a good two player game you should check out Lost Cities.  It's really fun and has good replay value.  Right, like you care...

  Today a gentleman came into my workplace and relieved me of my green army bag.  Things that were contained in my bag.

- My ID.  My only form of ID.

- About five hundred dollars.

- Will's Gameboy.

- My debit card.

- My seventy-six dollar metro card.

- Two books.

- A Harper's magazine that I had yet to read.

  I should of put it up in the office, but I usually keep my wallet on my person and I got into the bad habit of throwing my bag in the storage closet.  Usually there's a magazine; maybe my cellphone in it.  Today was a different story.  I can borrow money from work, but I don't know how I'm going to take the train without my ID, so there's a good chance I won't be coming to Salisbury for a while.  Over and out and down and out.

  So, it's been a while since my last blog. Whatever. I'm getting through this quickly.

  Chris Victor came down.  Had a lot a fun with him. Took him to alot of places that I have mentioned earlier like Forbidden Planet, The Strand, Toy Tokyo,  Neutral Ground. Showed him around the East Village and of course we went to Katz's where he showed a liking for egg creams.  We tried to go to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store, but we got there after it closed. We did get a gander of some of the awesome products through the display window.

  We also traveled to Bed-Stuy for Chris to introduce me to Roti at Ali's Roti Shop. The food was pretty awesome for somebody as ignorant in the ways of the culinary spectrum as me.  The goat meat roti was of course the main statement in my stomach, but the phoolori was the exclamation point afterwards.  For a dollar they slide you these slighty dubious looking balls of yellow dough in ziplock bag and they're just kinda soaking in a tamerind sauce inside the bag and they look edible, but not really good and then you take a bite and it's awesome.  They're spicy and sweet and nice and chewy and if I didn't have to go out of my way to get them I would probably eat them about three times a week. Try some if you get the chance.

  While we're on food I also took the time to intoduce Chris to Crif Dogs which I was myself recently introduced to. I've never really been a hot dog fan, usually opting for the burger in the greasy shit department, but the first I went to Crif Dogs I saw something that took my breath away with beauty.

  Are you ready?

  Are you sure?

  There's this hot dog, right?

  That they have, okay?

  That they sell under the name of The Good Morning.

  And what it is (this is the important part) is a hot dog wrapped in bacon, deep fried, and served with a fried egg and a slice of cheese of top.

  It doesn't sound impressive in print and I'm sure that other places have this (although I couldn't tell you where really), but the fact that I found such a place to sell me such a product is awesome. Think about it. Hot dog, bacon, egg, and cheese. It's beautiful.

  Anyways.....

  We also went to see this movie called Brick. Twice in the same week. Here's a link to the trailer and here's a link to a good interview that just came out in The Onion. The premise might sound silly, but this movie is awesome. You know how everything I'm talking about I say that it is "awesome"? It's awesome times a million. This movie is so good it's obscene. Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. I went to see it, because the trailer looked awesome and it turned out to be awesome. Go see it. Chris Victor will vouch for me.  I would write more about it, but the interview really says everything I would.

   Thanks to youtube.com (which is very addictive) I can also show you the trailers of some other awesome movies.

Casshern:

  I saw this last night actually. I bought it on a whim after work for ten bucks and it turned out to be be pretty visually appealing. The script and pacing isn't mindblowing, but I'll be damned, however, if Casshern isn't fucking entertaining as shit. There's a scene where the main character decides to go crazy and fight an army of robots (who all look they're steam operated) lead by the main neo-sapien (yes, neo-sapien) villian and it's awesome. It's action film awesome as it should be.

Oldboy

(I'm really tired I'll finish this tomorrow)

 

Buddha games list

  This is a public thank you note to whoever decided to get wireless internet near enough to me for to leech off them.  I would write more, but right now I'm rediscovering the joys of Limewire.

  Out of sheer boredom and my sad habit of googling random stuff I ran into this website called http://shamelessrestaurants.com.  I was googling Kudo Beans (where I work now) and they're in the list of shameless restaurants due to a different period of managment (current working situation is fine and dandy; I'm pretty happy there) but I did notice that my former workplace was listed a couple of times.  I suspect they may have more entries than any other restaurant, but I'm not so sad that I'm actually going to tally them up.  For your enjoyment however you can get a tiny glimpse of where I worked for about two months.

1.  HURRY AND GET YOUR MONEY TOO

2.  CASA LA FEMME

3.  SAME OWNERS SAME ISSUES

4.  Like nothing you have EVER seen!

5.  Casa LaFemme/Oasis Rest. Group

6.  Horrible!

7.  Confirmed

8.  Casa la Crap

9.  Truly sick to my stomach

  For anyone curious as to why I stayed there so long, the reason is that I am stupid.  Very stupid and retarded.  All of these entries are pretty much spot on about the working conditions.  I mean there were other reasons why I stayed on, (it was the first time I had a steady income while in New York and I wanted to enjoy myself, I had to find another job before I moved on, etc. etc...) but looking back I'm really surprised at how much shit I took and at how long I took it.  Fuck Casa La Femme, my friends, fuck it's sleazy Egyptian ass.

   Extra: While you're at the website check out all posts pertaining to Mike Hunt.  He has these long rants that are incredibly self involved and aggresive and weird for the amount of time he most put into them.  Here's one for your enjoyment.  I ran into him, because he actually defends Casa which made me hate him istantly.

  (I'm going to expand this entry later, but I'm too tired right now. Later.)

  What to say, what to say?  Shit, I'm very tired right now although I'm not sure why.  Myspace overload I guess; it's so damn addictive and slightly retarded.  I mean, seriously people, how many surveys do you have to do before it becomes totally mind numbing?

  Oh man, I keep promising myself that I'll write a blog one day that entails personal feelings and long descriptive details of how exactly I feel about New York, but everytime I sit down it turns it a standard, bullshit, link-laden, poorly written, touristy list of places I've been.  Which, I guess, is slightly interesting and useful, but not nearly as important to me as the cultural and emotional affects of living here.  Most of my days are fairly unexciting and spent working, but there are brief moments of beatiful surreality that I never really write about.  Like walking out of a subway and hearing a nine piece brass band play or observing a living statue or giving change to a drag queen with shaky hands or walking behind young Texans roping a fake steer that they are carrying with them on the sidewalk or seeing what you thought was a pile of garbage move and reveal itself as a human being or walking on Steinway Street where two whole blocks are overwhelmed by the smell of hookah cafes.  I usually don't write about this stuff, because there's so much of it it's slightly overwhelming at times and hard to describe and explain that part of the beauty of it is that it is routine, as opposed to irregular, to see such things.

  Whatever, here's some touristy shit.

  I went to The Museum of Sex earlier this week which was ineresting, if smaller than expected.  Watched a lot of stag films with the most interesting one being a short animation commisoned for Winsor McCay featuring a riled-up gentleman by the name of Eveready Harton.  It's just weird to see animation in the vein of Tugboat Willy depict lustful encounters (like the way I phrased "fucking"?) and it's weird to think that it was made for the creator of Little Nemo, a jewel of innocence if there is one.  If you search you may be able to find the film online, but I've opted not to since I'm on a public computer.  It's worth it if you want to see porn from the turn of the century.

   I would also like to note that it's very weird to see a real flapper give a real blow job.

   I just got back from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre which is probably the best place for cheap entertainment.  Five bucks for a show is a pretty sweet deal.  It was kinda of stupid and silly, but that's what I expect of improv.  While I had a good time, there's nothing of particular notice to mention from the shows, but if anybody cares these two ladies know how to make people laugh.

  I also went to Evolution, a store in SoHo that features nature items, today.  I feel like I could get alot of the items there for cheaper from some place else, but let me just say that if I was rich man, I would've come home with a lot more than the scarab keychain I purchased.  Some favorite items of mine include the giraffe hair bracelets, the small vials that contain preserved killer bees, the baby skeleton (that will set you back a couple of thousand alone, but keep in mind it's real; you can actually see the soft part of the skull), the framed tarantulas, and the wooly mammoth tusk you can purchase for two grand.  Next, on the nature shop stop is Maxilla and Mandible in hopes that it is more reasonably priced.

  As for my job it goes well.  Nothing exciting to post about it, but I am still happy working there.  David Cross ordered a cup of coffee from me (he takes cream for all you gossip mongers!) which was cool. 

  Well, that's it for now.  I'm going to get some food and try and write some more.  Take care.

  Hey, what's up?  Good.  Here's what up with me.

  Hair is growing back.

  My right lymph node is infected and very swollen.

  I've worked a lot.

  When it snows in New York you get what I like to call "slush traps."  Little areas of slush that appear to be a thin layer when they are in reality covering about a foot of icy cold water.

  Ummm, that's about it other than the shitty time I had getting my last check from Casa which is so maddening I don't even want to talk about it.

  Just so nobody gets the wrong idea I've actually been pretty happy recently despite a whole bunch of stuff.  I'm just trying to stop being so damn sick.

  Also Valentine's Day sucks.

  Also one of the regulars at the coffee shop, I now work at, is one of the editors of this magazine.  You know it's awesome.

  Just dropping a blog to say that I got a new job in the East Village as a coffee grunt.  I'm getting paid less, but my boss isn't crazy and I'll be working close to Toy Tokyo and Katz's.  I still need to break the news to my current employers which should be fun.

  On the culinary side, I went to a little hole in the wall Japanese place near 45th and Lexington and got very drunk on rice vodka and ate sweet beef tongue.

  On the semi-cultural side I worked a twelve thousand dollar sweet sixteen party for a young indian girl and got to see and hear a fusion between tradtional Indian dance and hip hop.

  On the visual side I went to Five Points which is a huge warehouse filled with graffitti and wandered around that for a while. Pretty amazing.

  On the personal side I'm writing a little bit, but not as much as I should be, but I am writing none the less and may try to publish a story.  I'm just trying to tear myself away from what I think writing should be.

   Okay, I'm going to try and find something cheap to do.

  Well, it's been a while since I've posted a blog and I'm sorry as I know everybody is really anxious to see how I'm doing (cough.)  Anyway, I've actually been pretty busy.  Dean came down and we spent some fun times together. We went to theMoMA where I particularly enjoyed the Safe Design Exhibition.

  (Speaking of the MoMA can I just say that their store offers the coolest cup for sale?  Seriously people, I failed to recieve Christmas gifts from alot of you. Hint.)

   We also went to Little Italy and Chinatown where we ate cheap Italian food and visited a large Buddhist Temple (where we purchased fortunes for a mere dollar.)  I also took the time to introduce Dean to the pleasure of Katz's Deli.  Pastrami, mmmh....

   Of course we went to comic book stores and other crazy stuff, but if you want to know more just ask Dean.

     I also recently visited the Met where I believe I have discovered the best titles for short stories ever.  I tried to find if there was a translation of these little poems, but alas I failed.

     Besides all this, today was very exciting in it's self.  I've been in New York for a while, but I hadn't really treated myself to anything in the culinary sense so I thought I would go down to Momofuku, a noodle bar that is suppose to be really good, (and a plate of pork buns is only five dollars.)  So I went all the way down to the East Village on a empty stomach and wandered around until I found  it where upon I found a sign posted on it that said they were closed for lunch and would reopen at five.  When I looked in, however, the place was packed and cooks were scurrying over the grill so I thought there might be some mistake. I saw some lady come towards the door and was going to ask her if the place was open when I noticed it was Martha Stewart surrounded by a film crew.

  Martha Stewart: Felon and Pork Bun Hoarder.

     So instead I got some pizza and headed off to Neutral Ground where I purchased the player's handbook for D&D 3.5 and some characters sheets. Next thursday I plan to be there scouting out the place for a game to crash. I'm more excited about this than I thought I would be. It feels good to think that I'll be rolling dice again.

   Anyways the really cool thing I'm still pretty hyped up about is that I got to see David Foster Wallace read from his new book "Consider the Lobster". I didn't think about the fact that all the pictures I've seen of him are about a decade old, so I was really surprised to see a man who looked, well, like he could be a college professor and married, which I guess he is.

   The reading was about thirty minutes long and it was one piece about his reactions to 9/11 and then there was a forty minute Q/A which started off like this:

   DFW: Yes, you. (points to a guy in the back)

   Random Guy: Yes, I noticed that in the piece you read, you used the word hideous in both describing the Qwik-Mart and the events of September 11th. Is that some type of reference to the culture wars of America?

   (pause)

   DFW drums his fingers.

   DFW: I have no idea what you're talking about. The culture wars?  Are you asking me if, because I used the word hideous twice in a article, am I making a reference to the ideological differences of the left and right?

   Random Guy: (says something so convoluted and meaningless and long that I really can't even remember what he said; really if he said anything at all)

   DFW: (kinda ignores his question, but answers it as well as he can by just talking about his view on politics in general.) Next question?

   All and all David Foster Wallace struck me as an intelligent, friendly, slightly timid guy who seemed to always manage to stay one word away from being a smart ass. I did the fan boy thing and got my book signed and told how nifty I thought he was. Then we shook hands and I departed.

   All and all a good day.

   This blog may have tons of errors and feel stiff in it's phrasing, but screw it, I got to home. I 'll try to update my blog more often, so I don't have to cram everything in at once and maybe get to be more personal. All right peace.