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Erik…film maker, mountaineer, husband, and now a triagenarian. Also, one of my best friends. Happy Birthday, buddy! As a gift, I will replace the photo above if someone sends me a more flattering one. I didn’t get many shots (pictures) at your party because I was stuffing my face with gigantic cupcakes and liquor. Congrats to Kerstin on throwing a perfect bash.

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Site of the Day: Problem earwax? Try the Ototek Loop.

Last year for my birthday Ildi was nervous. As the day approached, she realized I am impossible to buy for. I’m a bit of an electronics junky so I would be very particular about any new toys. I had just moved into a small apartment, so room was a premium and any new item must earn its right to take up space. With these constraints, she went forth to purchase. She also brought with her the same prejudices we all do when we go shopping. No one like to buy something they disapprove of. For me it is jewelery. For Ildi video games were verbotten. She certainly was not going to buy her boyfriend a video game which is essentially a gift certificate to ignore her.

The night before my birthday, she was excited and anxious about the gifts she had gotten so she urged me to open them early. I like to wait and as I channel surfed I nonchalantly said, “Relax. I’m sure I’ll love what ever you got as long as it’s not something stupid like towels.”

The next day it came time to open gifts. With loving exasperation, she produced a DVD sized box from her bag and tossed it at me.

“Here, you big jerk,” she said somewhat jokingly.

I opened the package and it was “Prince of Persia” for the Sony Playstation 2 (a video game). While I tried to thank her, she handed me another gift bag. I peered in to see two designer decorative towels that apparantly would match my new bathroom perfectly. The video game had been a lunchtime purchase to compensate after my offhand comment the night before. I just laughed and told her I already had “Prince of Persia.”

Now before you call me evil (and all my female friends who have heard this story have) you should know that it was that incident that taught me a lesson that lead me to getting Ildi earrings for Christmas (what she really wanted) as opposed to a stereo (what I really wanted). That lesson also caused Ildi to harass me this year until I picked a gift. She basically gave up and let me loose in J & R with her credit cars, which any guy would tell you is the ultimate gift. I got the beautiful phone pictured above. Thanks, Ildi.

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About the phone: I did buy the Sony Ericsson W800 as described last week, but it wouldn’t take a charge. Also, it just didn’t cut it as an MP3 player. There is no headphone jack on the phone. The controls are cumbersome. Worse than that was a hiss in the headphone and frequent electrical pops. So Jerry and I returned it (sans Ildi unfortunately) and I got the Samsung t809, Samsung’s answer to the RAZR. It rocks. It is what James Bond would use. Or Morpheus. Or…Sean T. Conrad.

Call me.

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Site of the Day: Via the ThighMaster, What is Cosby?

After visiting J & R to return one cell phone and get another (to be covered later), Jerry, Ildi, and I went to Les Halles for my birthday dinner. The restaurant is run by chef Anthony Bourdain when he is not writing or traveling on TV. The butcher’s case that greets you when you enter immediately tells you to order the beef. As soon as a waiter walks buy with fries on a tray, you know that steak fritte (or perhaps steak tartare) is the only sensible order.

The steak, fries, and a very reasonably priced Rioja were all magnificent. It was a very nice relaxing birthday. You all are still invited to buy me Guinesses throughout the week, though. I’m already about a dozen shy of my average for year three two.

On a side note, acceptable topics of conversation at my birthday dinner: electronics, beer, whiskey, movies, books, and traveling. Unacceptable: rings, marriage, and babies. Not that I am not interested in these things, just not on the day when I am feeling old. Talking to me about babies on my birthday is like singing the praises of being in the Army to a draft dodger, only much more likely to get a fork jammed into your adam’s apple. Luckily for Jer and Ildi, I love them both very much and took out my anger on the beef.

On another side note, calling me a “grup” will also get a utensil in your neck.

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Site of the Day: Fun, geeky, time-killing site from Muncle Steve, http://www.waynesthisandthat.com

I became thirty-two today. Or maybe it turned into me. I'm not really into my own birthday, so not much of a post today. Just a picture of what I want for my b-day next year: a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. You can't tell from the photo, but the motor was on and I was revving it. That second in time was LOUD.
Other birthdays:
31
30
29
28

So you don’t have to. This entry could alternately be titled “Citizen Sean.”

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Periodically, I go to visit Matt in Providence, RI. It’s a nice, small city near the Mass. border. The downtown has been revamped. The capital building is impressive, so we stormed it. Other than that, I don’t have too much to report. A better story is all the other shit we did completely unrelated to Providence. I will post that tomorrow.

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Site of the Day: I’m not sure what these trailer re-mixes mean. Maybe that Hollywood is dumb. Maybe that advertisements suck. I don’t know. I just know that I love “Jaws” and this reminded me of that.

And I want it now. The thing is no one makes the perfect one yet. Everyday I empty my pockets and put my iPod and cell phone on my dresser. You would think someone would want to reduce the bulk in my pocket and take my money (which also would slim down my pocket bulk). To be practical, it needs at least 1GB – This can be accomplished with an internal harddrive or expandable memory slot. Why can’t I have 4GB like a Nano though? I also really, really want stereo Bluetooth headphone support. Stereo is the key here. Most new phones support Bluetooth wireless earpieces, but only the Nokia TK supports the stereo Bluetooth necessary to listen to music. I hate wires and I want this.

The ideal doesn’t exist yet, but it is on the way. The truth is Nokia and Sony are both headed in this direction. According to this, they want to be an iPod killer. Samsung has another iPod competitor (SGH-i310) coming out in the Fall. The problem is my birthday is next Tuesday and if I don’t tell my girlfriend what I want, she is going to box my ears. So I’m going for the Sony Ericsson W800. Sony Ericsson is coming out with the W810 in May and there are persistent rumors that Apple is releasing something April 1, but I don’t care. I’ll report back here what I think of the phone. Today’s pic is from http://www.bengalboy.com (NSFW) who combines wireless reviews with babes. Odd, but appealing.

Related Links:
Sony Ericsson W800 – See the phone with girls in bikinis.
Synching a Sony phone with iTunes
Sony’s wireless headphones
Mobilementalism.com

Probably disappointing in the theater, but delicious on DVD. Brought to you buy the guy from Broken Lizard (Supertroopers) with lots of cameos from that gang, the movie stays true to itself. Car chases, babes, a simple mystery, 70’s images confronting a modern world, and more car stunts. Bo and Luke are so-so, but the General Lee carries the scenes. Willie Nelson steals every moment he is on screen. The best highlights are the subtle jokes director Chandrasekhar sneaks in. Jessica Simpson is a 3-D actress hot enough to make you punch your wife. Greatest movie I saw yesterday.

– Rent The Dukes of Hazzard today.

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Site of the Day:

You may have noticed the new look on the site. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was going to be updating the code on the site and it became my hobby. I’ve crawled all around Movable Type, CSS, and XHTML to update the site to current web standards. I still have a bunch of tweaks left to do and a ton of bugs to iron out, but I like where it all is heading. The main benefits to readers are the tags and favorites, which should unbury some old entries. If you have a favorite article or if you want a tag of your name, just let me know. Imagine being able to link to every entry tagged with “Marty.” Dare to dream.

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Site of the Day: Via Howard, Beatle Balls, an amazing juggler.
UPDATE: Apparantly, this juggler thinks the first juggler sucks.

Sean, Ben, Holly, and Ildi’s Reaction to the Bodies Exhibit at the South Street Seaport, listed with five supelatives:

Most Fascinating: According to Holly, the people’s teeth. Some cadavers had “summer” teeth (summer’ here, summer’ there) while others had nice commercial actor teeth. I thought the circulatory system dyed crimson and suspended in water was also interesting.
Most Disturbing: Smoker’s lungs.
Grossest: Hands down, the uterine tumor with hair and teeth. Honorable mentions go to penis cancer, anything involving my new least favorite word “polyps”, or the back pores on the sectioned obese woman.
Coolest: The isolated spine–looked like a recoiling centipede.
Worst Part: The live people. Way too many, and too many with young children, congested the exhibit. The whole thing felt slightly disrespectful and the poking folks or the woman showing a dead baby to her smiling fat baby made it worse.

All in all, despite the hordes, our foursome gave the exhibit a unanimous thumbs up.

On a side note, do you remember what the vena cava is? What else did you once know that you have since forgot?

If you have ever seen the episode of Saturday Night in which Billy Dee Williams does a fake commercial for a malt liquor called “Coldcock,” you may remember a really weird thing. During the bit, the camera would cut to this Greek chorus of three styled African Americans that would whisper in unison, “Coldcock!” Anyways, that’s the style of how I kept repeating, “Bodies!” during the Bodies Exhibit, long, long after it was entertaining.

UPDATE: From Holly, the original is better.

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Site of the Day: Already a cult hit, Snakes on a Plane.

My friend and coworker Rob turned the big four-O yesterday, so we took him out for a giant pile of pastrami at Katz’s Deli, a New York icon. Unchanged since before the war, it’s a classic place to go for meat on rye. I was going to get the salami, but our “cutter” (guy with a knife behind the counter making sandwiches) scowled at me and slapped a pastrami sample on a plate. After tasting it, I changed my order, and he smiled and said, “I thought you would.” Holding a giant sharp knife in one hand and a chunk of cured meat in the other makes a person very cool. Along with the Bass and homemade pickles, Katz makes a great birthday lunch.

– Katz’s Deli