Memorial Day Weekend Recap

The weekend was a relaxing one. Though, it's only been a two weeks since my trip down to Miami, it's always welcome to kick back, get some sun and do nothing again.

Rest is one of those things I forget to do, but is much needed by my body. Ironically, I do a great deal more muscle growth when I'm not doing anything. My body can refract and heal all the damage I do to myself at the gym.

We did get in some tennis. I had a chance to try out my new racquet. The BF insisted on getting it for me. He was being pressured by friend A to get me one and felt obligated since I'd gotten him his racquet. On Wednesday, we went to Powers Court on 24th between 6th and 7th during lunch. I'd picked out a Prince racquet, Triple Threat Thunder-something or other superfluous name. We'd gotten a great deal on it. It was strung and picked up by Thursday.

I'm no threat, much less a triple threat but it was nice to hit the ball some. We played on Saturday in the morning and on Sunday afternoon after rafting. Both times, the weather was gorgeous. I'd mindfully kept myself constrained and focused on keeping the ball in or about the court. Friend B was patient and welcomed the opportunity to run around the court some. He needed/wanted the exercise. BF and I had him huffing and puffing. I was too, but was able to adapt quickly. Mostly volleyed the ball back and forth but we did play a set. Had to practice within boundaries if I'm going to learn. It was B versus BF and I.

We lost.

BF was smashed (see drunk) and burning off the alcohol he consumed on the river. Me? I just suck. B gave us some helpful pointers, after the fact of course. Funny.

Beside tennis and rafting, we hung out at the house. Usually, it's a bunch of adults sitting around drinking, playing games and hanging out. It was a different dynamic when you introduce two infants. We weren't as rowdy and loud in the evening. We didn't stay up as late either. B made mention that this Memorial Day Weekend outing may not work out much longer. Oh well. All things must come to pass.

BF and I hit the road around noon yesterday and made it back to Brooklyn in no time. We did stop in on his brother in Staten Island as we passed through. Upon arriving home, I crashed.

Roused in the evening to work on the iPhoto library on my laptop. Damn thing wouldn't trash any of the photos I deleted. After some monkeying around, I had to rebuild the library. Fortunately, I didn't have a lot of photos.

On the river.

Memorial Day Beginnings

I'm up in Monticello, hanging at my friend B & C's house for Memorial Day.
Past few times I've been here, if I wanted to use the computer, it's been dial-up. Starting up today, I stumbled on a wireless network and it's been left deliciously open for me to hijack and plunder. I'll take this opportunity to post.

It's been a restful beginning to the Memorial Day weekend.

Considering all of the poor forecasts I'd been hearing all week, the weather was surprisingly gorgeous this morning. The BF and I started out early, stopping around Brooklyn to run a few errands before heading out. It was a beautiful day for a drive and with little incident, the road gods were kind. We trekked through Staten Island, into New Jersey and back into New York. We tried to coordinate a meet up with B & C, who were just a few minutes behind. They'd stopped in Paramus to pick up some baby things. BF was driving and too busy jetting around to pay attention so we missed the stop and continued on to the house. We'd arrived a few minutes before them.

With the nice weather, we were looking forward to some tennis but we were all starving. We headed out to grab a bite to eat and stopped into Wal-Mart to pick up a few things,Snagged some bargains to fill out the DVD library like, Poltergeist and Thirteenth Ghost for $4.88, Jumanji for $5.50 and Terminator for $7.50. Sweet!

We hoped to get back, grab our racquets and get to the courts. By the time, we walked out of Wal-Mart, the sky was dark and ominous. Hopping into the cars, we were running ahead of the storm. The wind whipped up, pushing the car around and the rain started to fall. No tennis alas.

I'd packed things to do in case of bad weather, namely the Nintendo Gamecube and a wealth of games. I'd also gotten two games this morning at TRU, SoulCalibur II and Simpson's Hit and Run. I've been playing SCII late into the evening with friend S. I'm enjoying this opportunity since not many people will play video games with me, especially fighting games. We did play Scene It TV edition, also picked up at TRU.

It has rained the entire time until mid-evening. I hope it isn't like this tomorrow. We're hoping to get on the Delaware River for some rafting.

Errands of Joy

I managed to get to the gym in the morning, freeing myself to do whatever I wanted for lunch.

I'd made the best of my lunch hour, well, an hour and a quarter.

First, I walked up to Astor Place for a haircut. Second, I proceeded up to Cosmic Comics on 23rd Street/Broadway. Third, went further up to ImageAnime on 30th Street/6th Ave from which I returned back down to the office. Whew. Everything was like clockwork except for the R/W train at 23rd Street, going uptown. It was slow going, so it killed 5-8 minutes.

At Cosmic, I had a backlog of books to pick up:


Somehow, I missed…



At ImageAnime, I had to get:



I couldn't help myself. Die-Cast goodness.

Sure, I could have waited on a few things and not run around like an maniac, but I wanted to see if I could do it in an hour. Close but not quite.

Talked with friend Neal this morning while he was commuting to work in Los Angeles. We started chatting as he was 6 miles from work. A half hour later, he was just in view of his office. Ack. I think I would die. He said that lunch errands, such as the ones I executed today, were impossible to do in L.A., let alone one of leg of my lunch run. Guess I did my loony lunch run, because I could. Nyah. Nyah.

Eat? Who eats at lunch? After getting back, I ran out to the corner store for some spanish food, yellow rice, beef stew and black beans. Yum.

Get "Lost"

Reminder, tonight is the 2 hour season finale of "Lost".



If you've been watching, then you already know this and have your evening appropriate blocked off as I do. If not, I'd say this is a good opportunity to watch a great TV series close out it's inaugural season and then sit waiting with the rest of us for the second season to start.

Aromas

New York is a city of displaced scents. Some good, most bad. "Piss and donuts," said my college student teacher, "That's what the subways smell like." I agree but personally wish for a little more donut nowadays. The Bleecker Street 6 train stop reeks of spoiled milk, as fetid pools of water have no where to go. Not how I like to start my day, I tend to avoid that exit or test my ability to hold my breath which is next to useless.

I don't want to reflect on the odious smells.

Living in a culturally diverse city as New York, you have to be accustomed to an array of scents and I'm not talking about people. We may be distinct in that regard, however I don't want to get too close to anybody to get a bad whiff. I'm referring to food scents. With the high diversity density in NY, the mix of aromas is inescapable and an odd juxtaposition.

Every time I leave the "new" gym in the morning, I exit through a stairwell with the wafting smell of cooked meat. A "street meat" vendor has strategically positioned himself at the entrance of the gym. Is he hoping that the scent of seared meat with onions and a hint of curry would have catch gym goers in a momentary state of weakness? "So wrong." I think as a I walk out and away.

A block from the gym, I was struck by another scent. It was a pungent, sweet vinegar scent. It wasn't completely unpleasant but severely out of place. It gave me pause and I spun around trying to figure where it was coming from. It was probably venting from NoHo Star.

I was bombarded by so many smells first thing in the morning before I had anything to eat. They had me salivating. The scents also got trapped in my nose, so long after I'd left the vicinity, I was still smelling them. I couldn't smell my coffee after purchasing it and it tasted odd at first, but then things cleared up.

It did leave me a hankering for BBQ at 10AM. *shrug*

Sunday Afternoon Dance Machine

This past Sunday, DJ Victor Calderone spun his second Evolve party at Crobar. I'd wanted to get there for 9:00am, but I had difficulties falling asleep the night before. The BF woke me at 7:30AM, asking "What time were you planning on going?" "Now," I replied. I quickly dressed, kissed the BF and left.

Like the last time, I wasn't going directly to the club. I went to the gym first albeit, the "new" gym. Fortunately, the SoHo Crunch, while not open until 9:00AM, let me in early. I really wasn't in the mood to try out the Lafayette facility. A quick workout gave me an adequate pump and confidence boost, hit the showers and I was out of there. I did stop by the office to drop off my gym bag. Lesson learned from the last time.

The day was ominous weather-wise, dark and grey. I hailed a cab as the sky started to spit. By the time I reached 28th and 10th, it was raining steadily. I didn't mind. This made it all the better that I'd be spending the next few hours inside a dark club. It wouldn't feel like a day wasted.

I literally walked right in. I'm guessing this is what the security guards called "Alegria Searches" since I wasn't searched at all, not that I had anything to hide. It was no more than 10 minutes from the door to coat check to the dance floor.

More of the same (Yes, Joe ::thud::) but ever so slightly different from the last time is how I'd describe this Evolve party. Regardless, I had a blast as I usually do. I'd managed to get right in to a groove.

I was all by my lonesome, so I wasn't waiting on anybody to arrive, which I don't quite know why, stresses me out so. Ran into a few club friends, but for the most part, danced and pranced by myself. The crowd was lighter than last time. This may have had to do with Junior's Military Ball Party at Spirit. But everyone was partying and dancing hard. It was tres gay (good-looking crowd) with a smattering of women and guido knuckleheads. All friendly and accommodating, no pushing and shoving. I'm fairly certain I had a handful of admirers lurking about and that's not including the woman that felt compelled to gently scratch my abs in appreciation as I passed her by the bathroom. This isn't nearly as blush inducing as the high-as-a-kite japanese girl at Arc that ran her finger down my chest and abs lasciviously, exclaiming "Sexy." ::rolls eyes::

Some musical highlights for the afternoon:
8 Letters - Holmes Ives (VC dropped an awesome mix!)
Keep It Coming - 7 feat. Mona Monet (an oldie but goodie)

Victor started playing with the crowd a little bit towards the last 2 hours. A couple of times, he brought us down and followed up by slamming us with a hard pounding track. WORK! Victor had the club grooving till about 5.

I walked out into a steady rainfall. Absolutely miserable outside. Evolve was a great way to spend a rainy day.

Athletic Eye Candy

Coming out of Brooklyn, I boarded a train where sitting in a corner seat was a man, dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and baseball hat. Could anyone tell me what team a maroon hat, with an arrowhead logo, is for? ( Of course, I was hoping he bats for my team *giggle*) He was a muscular build, olive skin, dark hair and furry on exposed parts (nice legs/forearms). He was yummy. His face was very pleasant to look at. With his eyes closed, he perched his head up on the aluminum bat he was holding. Whenever he did open his eyes, they had a dreamy quality about them, or it could have been that he was dreaming. I had to wonder why he was dressed like that, so early in the morning. What was his story? I didn't look at the width of his bat (no comments pls) to tell if it was a softball or hardball bat. Was it softball practice? Was he a minor leaguer? College baseballer? Maybe it was just a day (off) at the batting cages? I'll never know.
At Canal Street, I changed to another train. Immediately, I was struck with the question, "Why is this guy dressed all in Champion® grey sweats?" This was juxtaposed with what looked like a shiny bling-bling Breitling® and white Nikes®. This boyish man was blond with a crew cut, probably Russian/Slavic. His face wasn't bad but, it looked sullen and beaten upon. Not nearly as handsome as the ball player. I concluded that he was probably a boxer/fighter and that the sweats hid a very ripped, fighting machine. As we both left the train (what boxing gyms are near my work?), I glimpsed his hands, meaty and thick. Definitely a fighter. The sweats did nothing to hide his bulbous ass. OUCH!

I would've liked to have photographed these men for keepsakes, but one had a bat and one was a fighter. Yeah, that would've been asking for a bashing.

I'm nutz.

Just finished at the gym with a quickie workout.
Heading to Crobar now.
Check back later.

My Old Mac

My first computer was an Apple Macintosh Plus, all-in-one with a black and white 9 in. screen, a honking 1mb of RAM on board and a low density 3.5in floppy drive. I'd originally wanted an Amiga with color capabilities and games, lots of games. There was a store, a few blocks from our house that sold Amigas. Being older and wiser, dad insisted he knew better. So, we went to Macy's. If they sold it at Macy's, it had to be good, is what I'm thinking was my father's thought. We'd driven into the city and dad got a ticket making a right turn onto 6th Avenue from 34th Street. He'd managed to talk his way out of the ticket for the right turn (dad was registered and licensed in NJ) but he got a ticket for us not wearing seat belts.

After parking and heading into Macy's, we went to the upper level where computers were sold. They'd a nice little area set aside for Apple. The sales person was kind and convincing. I was a dejected. I couldn't/wouldn't plead my case to my father that I really wanted an Amiga. Not this black and white, archaic rock. But I respectfully nodded and smiled, and my father purchased the computer for about $2,000.

I wasn't 100% pleased with the purchase (more like 75%). I unpacked the Plus, set it up and went through the tutorial. This consisted of an audio cassette and floppy disks. Following the instructions from my Walkman®, I was using a mouse for the first time. It wasn't exactly thrilling to have to swap floppies often since there was no hard drive. One disk contained the system and one disk contained the application. The computer had to read from both, and you had only one floppy drive.

I eventually got the hang of a GUI (graphical user interface). MacDraw, MacPaint and MacWrite were the "suite" of applications available for the system. I learned to draw on the computer, pixel by pixel, black and white. I was hooked and the rest is history.

It was a pivotal moment. I'm glad my father made me "pick" the Macintosh because, well... where's the Amiga now? Not to mention, it spawned into a career for me. Father does know best.

"Supertrain"

I was reading this tidbit from Engadget today about the AeroSoft Train Simulator. I amused myself thinking that this was an ingenious testing device placed on the planet to find a worthy engineer amongst the humans, a la The Last Starfighter. The candidate would pilot an alien super train to the stars. As tangents in my mind go, I vaguely recalled a late 70's television series, called Supertrain.



I can't recall much of the show but a cursory search (thank you WWW) has turned up a plethora of information.

The train was cool. Of course, there was never a full-size train, but it was a really, really cool model.



But the show was ASS. It was "The Love Boat" on rails with a Julie the cruise director clone, down to a Isaac the bartender character, minus the handlebar mustache. Most All of the sites I hit for Supertrain, have it listed as one of TV's biggest flops alongside "My Mother the Car." Wow.

Here are some links to sate your curiosity.
Supertrain
TV Party
LakinLand

Dig the funky theme music here. You'll need RealPlayer.

"Here I go again…"

"…on my own."



Friend Frank has obligations, so it seems I'm going by myself. I need a little booty shaking. Anyone else going?

Tuesday DVD Bonanza

The "New" Gym

Yesterday at lunch, I walked over to the SoHo Crunch (not really SoHo, above Houston, but it's much more chic to be SoHo than NoHo) with co-worker/friend G, who was already a member of Crunch. Evan, cool membership guy, threw out some good deals. So, I bit the bullet and joined. G got a free month for talking the walk and "referring" me. It was a win-win situation for everyone. It really wasn't a hard sell, I'd made up my mind. It was mostly out of convenience. The gym is a few blocks from my job. Looking forward to doubling up on my workouts again.

I didn't get a chance to workout after signing up. The personal trainer guy wanted to sell me on some sessions and took up most of my time. So, I'd gone back after work. I settled in for a run. Crunch has the treadmills I like, where I could set the time, run until it told me I was done. The iPod Shuffle® and I were humming along, until the music cut out. My sweat got into the Shuffle. I got it to work again... but then my legs cramped. Groan. That was the end of my workout. An inauspicious beginning, to say the least.

The locker room and amenities are nothing great. First off, the lockers were on the fifth floor. It's embarrassing to take the elevator up, don't you think? but hell… that's a lot of stairs. There were six shower stalls for all men and they're open. I'm a little shy. I found myself missing NYHRC. Crunch will take some getting used to.

Today, I'd gone in early to meet up with a trainer for a session. They botched it and didn't have me scheduled. Rescheduled for tomorrow.

This was an opportunity for me to check out the weight floor.

The free weights area is on the 3rd floor and has plenty of equipment. Not the fanciest or up-to-date but good enough for me. I got down to business doing a round of exercises, mostly concentrating on chest. The area is a tad dark and could use some extra lighting. They have rows of lights unlit, but they may be a bit much. Perceptually, the weight I normally lift felt heavier.

Locker room and shower were tolerable. It's pretty empty at the gym, which I like. But as a friend pointed out, it did use to be a David Barton Gym, so there are a fair amount of shenanigans and goings on. Sigh. Can't ever escape it.

Miami Weekend Recap

Where to begin… it was simply a weekend where I wanted to put some color back into my pasty self and spend some QT with the BF.

Days were spent sunning on the beach, retiring to the Palace for an afternoon cocktail and nosh, back to the Hotel Nash for a late afternoon snog/nap before striking out again to Score for more cocktails and dinner. We'd fit in some shopping where ever we could. Not an ambitious plan but a plan nonetheless.

Dance Denied

Friend girls, A & M, were down in Miami for Aquagirl, a ladies' party weekend. Thursday evening, at an Aquagirl event at Score, one rather man-ish woman was talking crap to BF at the bathroom about how "this was a girl bar" and "he shouldn't be here", just so she could fanagle her way to use the bathroom first. I saw this happening across the way and it took some restraint from launching into a Cannonball Special and laying her out… or at least, give her a good talking too.

BF handled her and did the gentleman thing by allowing her to use the ladies room first. He stopped short of explaining to her that 364 days of the rest of the year, Score is a "gay" bar, neither discriminating between gay male or female.

I'd thought if I'd wanted to go dancing, I could have tagged along with A & M to one of the Aquagirl dances, but after the bathroom incident, I'd decided that the womyn would not all be receptive to having men around.

Sure, I could have gone out alone. Space was celebarting it's 5 year anniversary on Friday and Oscar G., the resident DJ was spinning. I would have loved to hear him and liked to have see what Space was like, but I managed to not give in. I squelched all impulses to go dancing this past weekend. It wouldn't have been conducive to the whole QT with BF. This weekend however will be a different story. Negotiations are ongoing.

Blog Sighted

Laying on the beach on the second day, my hands behind my head and eyes closed, I was slipping into a sun nap when I felt the icy fingers touch my arm. I opened my eyes to see a handsome, furry, burly, tan latin man hovering over me. Very hot in aviator sunglasses BTW. I was startled since moments before as I'd scanned the beach, I'd mentally "noted" him in my head. Woof! Are you EvilBuddha? he asked. I can't even remember what answer I stammered but I know I said yes. He introduced himself, it was Diego.
OH! Diego! I know you. I think I said. How embarrassing.
I was flattered. He and I exchanged pleasantries and he took off back to his spot on the beach.

For Joe



BF and I had a very, very late lunch on Friday. So we skipped dinner but were hungry at 12:00am. We went to Jerry's. I had an open face turkey sandwich and he had a burger. Yummy! I was saddened as I looked over the space in Jerry's. It must have been a great club. I waited to see if the ghosts would speak to me… but no such luck.

I'm back…

Last week:


Today:


I'm tired. Post to follow tomorrow.
Sun. Fun. I got blogsighted. Who'd a thunk? :)

Going MIA

Literally. Heading down to South Beach for a long weekend tomorrow morning. The BF and I are in dire need of a vacation and I'm in dire need of some sun. We'll meet up with friends, sisters of Sappho who are joining in on the Aquagirl festivites. If the womyn will have me, I'll party with our sisters. I could be too much for them and the BF is calling for some alone time.

I'll have the Lappy 17 but posting will be light to non-existent.

I'll entertain any requests for photos and if they're reasonable, I'll grant them. ;-)

Later for now dear readers.

Anal sex at the gym.

Well, not really, at least not by me. But it seems my gym really wants to fuck me…

…over that is.

I'm a member of NYHRC. It's a good gym, I like the staff, aside from the idiot trainers who don't know how to work out nice with other people in the gym. The equipment and weights are good, even if the other members don't know how to re-rack. I'd extended the membership from my previous place of employment. It was a great deal where I was paying $70 a month. My membership expires in 4 days on May 15 and since I'm no longer employed by the same company, I had to go speak to a membership consultant about what deals they had for me. "Deals" would be a loosely used term.

This is what I was given from the HRC Staffer, Ian:
12 month Contract with $1 sign-up (what's the fucking point?!) @ $109 per month
Yearly total is $1125
or
24 month Contract with $0 sign-up @ $99 per month
or
Pay-as-I-go Contract with $99 sign-up @ $119 per month

This was the best they could offer me? I explained to Ian that it was an inconvenience that I remain a member of his gym as I'm no longer working nearby but in NoHo. I travel two train stops to come up to 23rd Street. He offered that HRC is building a new gym near me in Cooper Square… opening in August. Whoop-de-fucking-doo.

At this point, I think Ian was getting the drift that he wasn't blowing any wind up my skirt, so he switched tactics.
"Well, you like the gym, no?" Not biting.
"I can give you till the end of the month free if you sign up for the pay-as-you-go but I'll have to pro-rate the first month." You've got to be kidding me!! No bite.

After last night, it pretty much cinches the deal that I'll be parting ways with NYHRC.

So on Monday I'll be shopping around for a new gym. Crunch is the closet gym to me, so I'll check them out. NYSC is just an armpit. I don't think there's an Equinox near me and even so, I doubt their rates would be competitive. I'd been a member of David Barton Gym on 16th Street for a few years. It was my first gym. Awwww. While it seems that they're under some fire, it's nothing new. Seen it before and not just at DBG. (The NYSC steamrooms were notoriously shut down all the time.) Never done it, not a judgement but a choice. I'd consider David Barton again. Although it is out of the way, it's the same as NYHRC is now. And I wouldn't mind being leered or ogled by Oliver, Darrel, Corey or Juan. Not saying that they do, but if they did, it's okay with me. :)

Processing Negativity

My allergies have been getting the best of me. Sunday night, I laid in bed and just as I was beginning to doze off, my eyes began to itch and my chest become congested. My breathing became slight ragged. As a result, I stayed up till about 3:00AM before I finally felt okay to sleep.

For the most part, Monday was a normal day. Mood modulation was taxing. Allergies and fatigue were a one-two punch lethal combination. It didn't help that while in my eagerness to get into a four-way…

…video conference call that is, to test out iChat AVs new feature on OS X 10.4 Tiger, I dropped an iSight against my laptop making a nick in the screen. GRRRRRR. Sigh. Breathe. It's a tiny nick, I keep telling myself. My eyes always focus on it. It's hardly noticeable. But it's there. Breathe. And the iChat AV four way SUCKED! We might as well have all been pixel people.

My emotions ran the gamut from melancholy to seething. It took all my logic to keep myself from slipping into a whole "woe as me" bit yesterday. Shit happens. I have to deal. They don't happen because it's my turn or some ridiculous reason. Things slip, things break. This is only the tip of the iceberg I'm sharing, but you get the idea. Kitty's in a vice, it wants out.

Last night, insomnia struck. I couldn't cycle my body back into a normal sleep schedule. It could've been that I was dead set on finishing Untold Legends. That's a bit unclear as I sat up playing my PSP.

I've defeated some big bosses yet the story continues. It's like Lord of the Rings - Return of the King with all it's false endings. Although, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying myself. I've got Rengoku waiting in the wings as soon as I've finished.

Today is more of the same. Eyes itchy, I'd just gotten over some agitation I was feeling, probably because of the lortadine.

I'd done a nice walk down into SoHo. Stopped into Best Buy to pick up a few things.



Then it was down to the Apple store to see if I could find something to "fix" the screen. No luck. Got something coming from RadTech, and I'll hold them to their claim that it'll "polish away most existing light scuffing you may have!" Fingers crossed but not confident it'll be what I'd like.

Shot back up to Astor Place to see Luigi and get a haircut.

Feeling much better since I had some lunch. I have to be cognizant that I eat. I get severely moody when my blood sugar runs low. I had a panini and some tortilla soup. The soup was good and spicy, made the back of my head sweat.

Relentless.

I awoke without opening my eyes. In the back of my mind, an inkling to go to Spirit remained. Before turning to look at the clock, I made a mental proposition, "If it's around 4AM, it would be a good time to go. If not, go on sleeping." 4:45AM blazed on the stereo.

Shit. That's neither here nor there. Shit. Oh well.

I got up.

I readied myself. The four hours of sleep did wonders. I was refreshed and raring to go. Showered and dressed, kissed the BF on the forehead and headed out.



The train ride was exceptionally uneventful.



I arrived at Spirit at 6:30AM. Breezed right in which is always welcome.
The crowd was moving and Junior was kicking it up, playing Twilo Classics, as advertised. I walked in to "Let the Music Play" by Shannon. He played most if not all of the tracks from his Twilo CD and some from his Earth 1 & 2 compilations. For a more accurate trainspotting list, go here. Reviews abound from Juniorphiles.

Admittedly, I can't say that I'm a huge fan of Junior per se but I do enjoy dancing to his music. Last night, I realized that he's not serving the musical journeys I've grown accustomed to from Danny Tenaglia. They are two separate and distinct talents. So the comparions are unnecessary.

With Junior, there isn't any cohesive connection between the music other than high BPMs and fisting pumping beats. Much of it can be classified as vocals with breaks, lots of breaks. I don't like breaks. When there are no vocals, the beat does not do well to bridge the music. It took me a long time, like half the morning, to break that down in my head and only then did I enjoy the music and dance hard. Many times, Junior executed the cut away mix, seems lazy but it's very dramatic and very Junior.

As I said, I made the best of it and enjoyed myself. His last song "A thousand miles" by Vanessa Carlton was cool, never thought I'd hear that on a big system, much less dance to it.

The crowd was very good. Very gay, I would say. I ran into friends, Dexter and Randy. Hadn't seen them in a long time, and was pleasantly surprised. While I was dancing with them, Greg (curiosity) danced by and said "hello." Guess he's not pissed at me like I thought. He and I pretty much hung out for most of the morning which was nice.

All said and done, I left the club at 12:00PM. Greg headed to an afterparty, which I excused myself from. I felt as if I was intruding with his "crew" of friends. I proceeded to walk through the city, stopping to buy some music and porn before heading home. It's a ritual. :-)

Friday overbooked/partially cancelled.

I'd made a promise to myself never to scheduling things in an unrealistic manner. While I may be eager to fulfill all my engagements, it's too much stress. Friday, I had set up a very ambitious list of events. I was to go to my parent's (currently in absentia) house where my brother's girlfriend was making a dinner for the siblings and their significant others, along with my grandmother. Then I was hoping to get to Barrage for GB:NYC2, graciously organized by Mark, whom my blogger pals were attending: Full List Here. If the night flowed right, I would saunter on over to Spirit where Junior Vasquez was spinning in "Relentless", his Twilo classics party.

Friday didn't start off well.

Rewind, Thursday night, I was out with Robocub. With the Robocub/Evilbuddha seal of approval, here is his account. What he doesn't account for, is my train ride home. I'd be remiss if I said that I didn't look like a drunkard fool. I'd had two drinks, okay maybe two and a half since I spilled half of my first drink, thanks to a poorly designed bar with a lip at GYM. Erik and I had eaten dinner too. But I was wasted going home. So much so, I was channeling Methadonia. (FYI, Citizens of methadonia are those people you find, generally around methadone clinics, who are standing in the middle of the sidewalk, moving sloth-like and usually hunched over themselves.) On the subway, I was falling asleep on my feet, a few times catching myself, starting to hunch over. Totally embarrassing. Somehow, I'd gotten it into my head that I need to get off the train at 59th Street in Brooklyn. I WAS ALREADY ON THE TRAIN I NEEDED TO BE ON! I sobered up quickly when I realized my mistake and focused the rest of the way home.

So back to Friday morning, I got up late. Real late. My allergies, coupled with the alcohol consumption threw my body clock out of whack. Hungover? No. Lethargic? Yes. Unamused? Completely. I got to work 2 hours late. Thankfully, my manager is understanding. Things were falling back in line by 5, when I headed home.

I was out of it all day and I'd hoped a nap would even me out. I napped for a half hour. When I woke up, I felt worse. Ever wake up nauseous? Yeah, that was me.

I was cranky and I set out to my parent's in this mood. I managed to get through the night without offending anyone. I don't think they were able to tell. I'm crotchety anyway it seems. Grandma was cute when she would get upset with my younger brother talking like a retard. Actually he was talking like 50 cent. Odd, no? Dinner was good. I enjoyed spending time with my brother's and their significant others. BF wasn't comfortable hanging with granny, so I allowed him to bow out.

I watched the time tick by, knowing I was missing the guys at Barrage. I did want to go, but my surliness and fatigue negated any such thoughts. I called RoboCub to inform him that I wouldn't make it. More like "If you see me, you see me."

My sincerest apologies to Mark and all the bloggers I was hoping to meet in person.

11:00PM - I arrived home with a dinner care package for the BF, disappointed I couldn't get to Barrage, still mulling the thought of Junior at Spirit.

12:30AM - I was slipping into bed and signing off for the night.

That is, until 4:45AM rolled around.

Lost in Translation

Huh?



What?



Oh.

PSPBB

Playstation Portable Billboard.
Gave me pause on Lafayette and Houston.




I love the detail on the power port.



This will never fit in my backpack.

Tiger Impressions

Super Homo Dance Robo-Ninja Geek Mode Activated.
(…and for some reason, my hair is blue.)

Permit me to prattle, again, about Apple's latest operating software,Tiger. It was a bumpy start for me, but the OS has been stable and running on my computers for the past few days.

My impression is, it's GRRRR-humph.

Yawn.

The "features" -
Dashboard - Yawn. (Still using Konfabulator. Yes, it works and better in my opinion)
Spotlight - Yawn. (Scary and I'd say problematic.)
Automator - So?
iChat 3.0 - Group Conferencing? You're going to need a heavy duty machine to host the videochat and don't expect to see great video quality.
Mail 2.0 - Looks and works ok.
Safari 2.0 - Shrug. RSS? I'll stick with NewsFire thanks.

I'm underwhelmed.

Maybe my initial experience has colored my final impression of Tiger. There's
plenty of changes under the hood and I can't say whether they are all for the better.

Chris Glass has a more comprehensive user's POV on Tiger. He's more evenhanded with his observations, even if he is gullible. (secret, so was I. doh!)

There has been random flakiness, most inexplicable.

I've spent the last day, chatting online with L trying to figure out why his G5 is running slow with Tiger. Actually more like being run into the ground. Some background processes are ramping up and taking up more than 50% of his CPU Processing power. At the heart of the problem is Spotlight is my guess, aside from the fact that he's only running his G5 with 512mbs of RAM. CHOKE! GET MORE!

UPDATE: L reinstalled Suitcase. All's well now.

Nifty Utilities

I'd like to offer this to anyone who's got an iBook, or 1st/2nd Generation Aluminum Powerbook, the one's that DON'T have the 2 finger scroll feature. Check out SideTrack. It's an advanced trackpad driver replacement that adds finger scrolling to the sides and/or top and bottom of the trackpad. Your wrists and thumb will thank you.

Last one is Witch. Like the application switcher in OSX (CMD-Tab) but instead it'll switch between all your opened windows with OPT-Tab. It's neat.

Pollen Melancholy

I'm fairly certain I've blogged about this, but I'll blog about it again. It's my blog so, nyah.

Anyway…
…where was I? Oh yes.

While I love the change over of the seasons and the warming of the weather, the pollen has become too much for me to bear. Developing allergies is a recent malady for me. Aside from the "touch a cat, rub my eye, watch eye inflate", I don't recall any allergic reactions in my youth. Although, there was that time with these guys and they had pets and, well, I had to leave unsatisfied but they weren't. I was in the process of swelling up (not the good kind) and felt my throat was closing up (not for good reasons). Got home, popped a few Benadryls and slept the day away, waiting for my face to go from elephant man to me.

Anyway… the pollen… yes, the pollen. It's horrific this spring and it's wrecking havoc on my body. Getting up in the mornings is difficult and strenuous enough, but the stuffy sinuses, ugh.

My allergy is manifesting in the front of my head and in my eyes. It's causing me great confusion, making my eyes feel heavy, as if I'm tired and fatigued. My body responds by shutting down and trying to go with this feeling. This happening in the middle of the afternoon is very inconvenient. Trust me, nodding off at the desk is not cute.

Other times, it feels as if I'm on the verge of tears. My mind responds by putting itself in to a melancholy state to match this teary sensation, purposely making me feel sad. What the hell? It's like putting the cart before the horse. Maybe I'm going through PMS or something but this emotional yo-yo has got to stop.

I try to avoid taking much medication but I've been sneaking a lortadine here and there. Just have to be careful, sometimes they make me speedy especially when mixed with coffee or caffeinated sodas.

So if you see me and I look sad, chances are, I'm not. Say hi and smile, that'll usually shake my "funk."




Hmm… yeah.

That was a pretty lame post, no?

Admit it, it sucked and I'm sorry to have wasted your time. I did throw a sex story in without actually saying sex. There was crying, well, almost crying.

Funny?… no? okay.

It's work. It's been busy and stupid. Rather than expound on the stupidity, you should go read this. If you're in the business, you'll get it and it'll be hilarious.

Hmm… yeah. Terrible segue. I'll work on it.

Sticking it to the MTA

May 3rd, the expiration date of my 30-day Unlimited MetroCard.
It's served me well in the past 29 days. I'd eked out some more today.

Swipe #1
N, R - Brooklyn to Downtown Manhattan, City Hall -
Have to return L's OSX Tiger disk he so kindly lent me.

Swipe #2
R - Downtown, City Hall to 23rd Street
Time for the Gym.

Swipe #3
R - 23rd Street to 14th Street, Union Square Park
Want to stop at Circuit City before heading to work.

Swipe #4
6 - 14th Street to Bleecker Street
Shit, I'm late, but I need a cup of coffee.

Swipe #5 & #6 (Roundtrip)
6 - Bleecker to 23rd Street
Comfort Diner for lunch with some former co-workers/friends.
F - 23rd to Broadway-Lafayette

Swipe #7
D, N - Broadway-Lafayette to Brooklyn (Home)
Why the f*ck must the N train always run so damn slow at this time of night?!?!

Swipe #?
As I walked out of the subway system for the night, I swiped it through the reader (doesn't count) to check that my MetroCard did indeed expire tonight at midnight. I left it there for someone to find. Perhaps, it'll find a few more rides before the clock tolls 12.