Blog

I’m really reaching today, but I want you to know, we are happy to serve you.

I wrote an essay last night that explained how I hate political commentary in blogs and then followed with political commentary. I was going to subject all three of you to it, but I decided against it because I hate to use irony as an excuse to do something awful. Bush sucks.

I need a new hobby. I’m starting to watch the mouse for fun.

The tradition of Millionaire Mondays continues, this installment consisting of Kelly’s lasagna and Scott’s ice cream at the girls’ place. In the upper left, Jon Applegate demonstrates how to hypnotize a Chihuahua by holding it upside down. The upper right photo shows the look of love Zora gives to Evan. I’ve decided to make a new habit out of taking pictures of my stories on the TV. I think it’s very white trash in a hip way. How cool would it be to have a few shot of “Chips” in the old album? Good times. Fuck “Nick at Night”.

In the lower right, my jaw drops in shock at the subtitles of the escape-to-the-woods scene that clearly imply a bj by Sarah on national TV. I’m convinced that she will lose because of that event. Why buy the cow when the milking is free?

Despite a few never before seen scenes of loser cattiness, this was the worst episode ever, to quote Erik quoting Comic Book Guy. Dan described it as “flashback fluff”, but agreed that it whet our appetites for the final showdown. I watch this shite not with ironic detachment, but with sincere submerging abandonment. I am above nothing.
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Seen this morning at a newstand on the cover of Wired, “Why the Segway Stalled.” Because all the assholes who would have bought it already got a Razor Scooter for $4900 less.
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If I make it to the end without ever seeing anything that is branded Big, Fat, and Greek, I will be very happy.
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Current score: Sean 0 – Mouse 1

Matt in Little Bombay, the last photo ever taken of him without indigestion.
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On my Sunday night, while restng and recovering from the weekend, I received an uninvited new visitor from a hole in my kitchen wall. Short of stature, stout of belly, and bold as hell, the guest proceded to inspect every inch of my room while I just quitely watched. After I took a trip to the bodega on the corner, I then got a
rerun of the show with the furry intruder stepping on every spot of my floor except the ones covered with newly purchased sticky traps. I’ve considered being an eccentric East Villager adopting the little guy as a pet, keeping a dish of food near his hole to reduce the scattering of droppings, but after a little more thought I’ve decided to kill him. Does anyone have a cat I could borrow for the weekend?

8:25AM I’m off to walk through some serious snow. I’ll tell you a little about the picture when I get to work. With coffee.
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10:21AM Last night, Joslyn and I attended the art opening of our friend Johannes Girardoni. Johannes greeted me at the door with a warm smile.
Long-legged in a well-cut black velvet jacket, he led me in to see his work, pieces created with encaustic and found wood. Encaustic is wax combined with paint to produce a unique, vibrantly colored material. Some artists will paint with molten encaustic, but Johannes prefers to display shaped blocks mounted on pieces of found wood.

Pictures don’t do his art justice, because when seen in person, there is an overwhelming desire to touch the wax. It looks so soft and bright, some of it like foam, some of it like Play-do, that you just want to poke it.
I resisted the temptation, but I did smell it after being encouraged by the artist. “Go ahead. It’s beeswax,” he told me and that prompted me to sniff the art—something inappropriate without the encouragement of the artist—at an otherwise reserved event.

Johannes’ daughter Julia and one of her little friends pose in front of one of the exhibits in today’s picture. She was pictured here a few weeks ago in a shot of me removing a rubber band from her Barbie’s hair at Kevin’s cabin.

Johannes’ wife Heidi and other daughter Julia also attended along with many friends and family. After inspecting the art, the most fun to be had was watching a cadre of little kids tear around the gallery in their Sunday clothes.

A bunch of kids made it out to The Edge last night for after work drinks and pool. Mike and I had a bit of luck and we were able to run the table for most of the evening. I finished one game by taking the eight ball all the way up and down on a bank shot to sink it in the corner.

I then calmly shook the losers’ hands, told the crowd I was going to go and get a beer. When I had left their eyes and got to the bar, I freaked out to Kate and her new fella, Mark, about how g**damn lucky that shot was. So now only Kate, Mark, and all of you know that I don’t make end to end bank shots on the eight every day. Keep it to yourselves.

Here’s who whooped it up last night:
Alex, Colleen, Diane, Erik, Jan, Jen, Kate, Mark, Maureen, Mike A, Mike N, Lauren, Tricia, Walker
Good times.

Apologies to any who do not follow Joe of the Millions. You can skip to the next paragraph. Upon watching the first episode, my friend Scott said, “Melissa will win. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my entire life.” Well, last night’s episode permanently discredited any beliefs in Scott’s clairvoyance because Melissa got the boot. She and her unflatteringly curly black hair got sent packing. She reminds me of someone I used to know who I can’t stand, so I had some illogical schadenfreude watching her go. Now there are only two left: Sarah, foot fettish p*rn actress, and Zora, psycho.
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When I walked by the Hells Angels this morning, I made eye contact with an aspiring member who moves their vehicles every morning in compliance with the street cleaning laws. I see this gentleman every day and have noticed that he wears the look of somebody who likes to make conversation with strangers. As I adjusted my headphones and passed, he asked why everybody had those things, referring to my walkman. I told him it was to block out the street noise and agreed that they were a touch silly. He then asked if I was listening to The Strokes. I wasn’t, but I had their disk in my bag, so to keep the conversation rolling, I told him I yes. He then told me the names of all the members of The Strokes, noting the only one that was actually good (the drummer), and which one had just married Drew Barrymore (one of the guitar players).
He continued that they suck, they are his friends, and even they admit that, yes, they suck. He went on to explain that their powerful manager had brainwashed me and that the band would soon be broke due to certain excessive behaviors. He used first names for everyone we discussed, but I can never remember dropped monikers.

We concluded that a new band would be created to replace them and I headed off. I hope he tells me something else tomorrow.

Morning meeting, coffee. Then, write up.
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I’m going to do a small page about Saturday night where the above picture will get explained. Guesses are welcome. Until then, I’m offering the reward of a free dinner to any who can explain how to put HTML into an XML node so that when it is transformed by the XSL, the tags are not lost.

I’m trying to put the monthly archives into XML and I’m stuck. Mostly because I’m lazy. Instead of figuring it out this weekend, I played Vice City for twelve hours.
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My brother Dan lives in Dallas so of course my mom called him freaking out about the space shuttle disaster. He was asleep and unaware of the whole thing, but upon hearing the news told her, “Oh yeah, there is debris all over the yard. We are trapped inside.” She obviously bought it and freaked out. He’s a shit.

A small prize to the first person who can email me in what bar this picture was taken. Mary and Colleen are excluded from entering. So is Lauren, to whom I’m very sorry for not making it all the way up to the Upper East Side last night.

During the peak of the Internet boom, my company had seventy-five fulltime employees. The crash caused us to scale back, but we are trapped in a lease for this enormous space that used to be El Diario, the Spanish newspaper. I put a picture up today hoping one of you would want to rent it. The space is huge and we would include a free pool table. You could have your own private dance club, a very huge apartment, or an indoor roller rink. We have not received many offers because office space in lower Manhattan is plentiful and unwanted. I think it has to do with the fact people keep blowing it up.
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I ran 3 miles at lunch today past ice flows in the Hudson. Just silly.

So I’m channel surfing, stopping more than I’d like to admit on “American Idol”, and I give my folks a call. “Are you watching the State of the Union?” I was not. I had forgotten. Did he say anything other than “bad”? Maybe “war”.

Pictured is my friend Bill. I stopped by Acme with the Trish to see him playing the drums. He really was happy to see me, but for the photo I asked him to look mean. Acme is my favorite place to get a blackened catfish po-boy, with sweet potato fries and hushpuppies.

On the way home from work I found a new grocery store, Morton Williams, on LaGuardia and Bleeker. It makes Key Foods look like the shit hole it is.