Fanboys Unite

So I'm reading this article about fanboys a friend twittered(typing that made me feel dirty) about fanboys, when I come to this quote from Matt Damon:

...[Fanboy's] tastes can be obscure. "You know the movie they quote me most often?" says Matt Damon. "Not the Bourne movies. Not Oceans. But Rounders. I can't figure it out."

I'll tell you why Matt: because Rounders is fucking awesome.

Mike McDermott: "I feel like Buckner walking back into Shea. "

Worm: "Hey! If you want to see this seventh card you're gonna stop speakin' fuckin' Sputnick. "

Worm: "I guess the sayings' true. In the poker game of life, women are the rake man. They are the fuckin' rake."
Mike McDermott: "What the fuck are you talkin' about. What saying?"
Worm: "I-I don't know. There ought to be one though. "

Mike McDermott: "I want him to think that I am pondering a call, but all I'm really thinkin about it Vegas and the fuckin' Mirage. "

Taki: "What did you think he had? Does he look like a man beaten by jacks?"

Teddy KGB: "In my club, I will splash the pot whenever the fuck I please. "

Teddy KGB: "Nyet! Nyet! No More! No! Not tonight! This son of bitch, all night he, 'Check. Check. Check.' He trap me! "

Worm: "Now, what did I ever do to that guy?"
Mike McDermott: "You fucked his mother."

and my personal favorite:

Mike McDermott: "You comin' up? "
Lester 'Worm' Murphy: "No, I've been standin' out here all this time just to say hi."
Mike McDermott: "All right, listen, things haven't been that smooth on the homefront so, you know, tone it down a little, all right?"
Lester 'Worm' Murphy: "Tone done what, motherfucker?"

I Have No Shame

How y'all feel? I have a question. How many people like to buy digital music? You always need something to get you through the workday...there's gotta be some people out there who like to use BitTorrent? Oh yeah...I was talking to my little brother the other day, and he said the kids these days really enjoy that MySpace...but I tell you something, when you're down in the dumps, and you need something to bring you up, there's only one thing that's gonna do it the way you want it!

iTunes binge!

What's that?

ITUNES BINGE!!!

Oh yeah. Instant gratification.

My apologies to KISS.

Anyway, I've gone on a couple of iTunes binges lately. There's something about that instant gratification, coupled with the spell Steve Jobs has cast upon me via my iPod, that compels me to drop dolla bills at two in the morning on songs from my formative years, or at least songs I think were from my formative years. It gets fuzzy.

You see, there was a time when all I had was the radio. I didn't have much money for CDs, so I listened to rock and Top 40 radio. And hearing some radio last weekend in DC, I realized, I miss some of those songs. So I started downloading tracks from Sublime, System Of A Down, Weezer, Pearl Jam, Coolio, Sum 41, Jimmy Eat World, Mudhoney, Audioslave, Incubus, Bush, Rage Against The Machine and god help me, Hoobastank. Live, Foo Fighters, Korn, Nine Inch Nails, Staind, Linkin Park, Fuel, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Good fucking Charlotte. It's a little disturbing that half of these songs are available on the TV compilation "Buzz Ballads", but damn it, this is what I had to work with. Then I remembered what I would heard, at the age of twelve, booming from my best friend's older brother's stereo. So down comes some Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, Megadeth, Scorpions, Rush and Twisted Sister.

Yeah, Hoobastank. What of it?? "The Reason" is insanely catchy.

What was popular when I was a college freshmen? What did I hum in the car while I was running late to eight am journalism classes? Down comes some Fastball, Matchbox 20, Semisonic, New Radicals, Eve 6, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Three Doors Down, Shawn Mullins(he sings "Lullaby"...you know, it goes "Every-thing's gonna be alright..."...he speaks in a real gravely voice in between the chorus about some drunk crying chick at a dive bar he's performing at...I just assume he nailed her that night), and just for the hell of it, Alice Cooper. It makes no sense, but it's iTunes, alright? It doesn't have to. While I'm here, I'll subscribe to the "Flight Of The Concords" podcast. Why not? It's fucking funny. "Two Princes", almost forgot that. And since it takes about 24 hours for my bank to process an iTunes transaction, much like a drinking binge, I won't pay for this until tomorrow!

I may have to go some kind of addicts meeting. Or just go to seeqpod from now on.

----------------
Now playing: Matchbox Twenty - 3 AM
posted with FoxyTunes

I Weep For The Past

So I'm sitting here, tweaking a design at work, while surfing the web at the same time(it's called multitasking) when I came across this story about the Beatles' part in the "first live trans-Atlantic satellite transmission". Apparently, it was widely panned in Britain at the time:

"Have we nothing better to offer? Surely this isn't the image of what we are like. What a dreadful impression they must have given the rest of the world," one comment read, the newspaper reported.

Another viewer, impressed by contributions from elsewhere, said "after all the culture ... shown by the other countries, the Beatles were the absolute dregs," the newspaper claimed.

"We did not do ourselves justice," another viewer commented.

I wonder, what would these British adults of the 1960s preferred? Shakespeare? I just wish Monty Python had existed, they could have beamed the entire world the Dead Parrot Sketch.

The best part of this is, as I was reading that the song "All You Need Is Love" was written for the performance, it starts playing on my iPod. Awesome.

You know I'll be seeing Across The Universe on opening night.

Friday Night Lights

I'm trying something new today. I'm going to post a weekend re-cap on a Friday. Why? It's the kind of outside-the-box thinking that I've been doing lately. That, and I haven't made the time to write it until now.

Anyway, last weekend was great. It didn't get off to a great start. I had to work late Friday, and I barely made the ten o'clock bus to DC. The cut-off was about two people behind me. Those unfortunates had to wait until 12:30 am for the next DC bus. I was lucky. I had a psychic in front of me.

Of course it wasn't his amazing extra-ordinary mind powers that helped(after all, he didn't anticipate Port Authority, of all places, being crowded). No, what helped was he was going to Baltimore to "unhaunt" (I assume that was a technical tearm) an old motel. So when a separate bus to Baltimore became available, off he went, and up the DC line I went. Before he left, he did give me a nugget of paranormal knowledge I feel I should pass on: usually (but not always, mind you), if there is a ghost doing some haunting, it's because that person died possessed. Before you ridicule, keep in mind this man was financed by the Sci-Fi channel and wore a t-shirt from his TV show. That's credibility, folks.

So I got into DC around three in the morning. Luckily, my father and my youngest brother(who is 19, wow) were waiting for me. I was all prepared to get my geek on the next day. Considering the festivities started at noon, I went to bed right away.

Hahaha, I'm just kidding. I hardly ever do the reasonable thing when it comes to sleep. So, after getting lit up with two of my brothers, we went outside and I spent a good half hour watching them attempting to hit one their cars with a football. It's not as dumb as it sounds. The car was parked in the street, across the yard, underneath one huge tree with another standing between them and the car. So bullet passes were out; they had to launch the ball like an artillery shell so it would clear the first tree and arc through the branches of the second. In the dark.

OK, it is as stupid as it sounds, but after ten or twelve misses(we decided halfway in that 'off a bounce' didn't count) I was really invested. Someone had to hit it. Sadly, neither one did. Oh, and during this entire spectacle, a hot waitress from the restaurant all of my brothers work at watched the entire thing. That just made it more surreal.

Eventually, I made it to bed and somehow, I manage to get up in time.

The Magic festivities were fun. My father did the best in the tournament, finishing in the money, with the rest of us scrubbing out by round five. In fact, everything was going pretty smoothly until I unleashed the "six degrees" monster.

You see, Friday night, while I was working late, my co-workers and I started playing "six degrees" with various actors. For example:

Elvis Presley to Naomi Watts
Elvis > It Happened at the World's Fair < Kurt Russell > Bird on a Wire < Goldie Hawn > Everyone Say I Love You < Julia Roberts > Closer < Jude Law > I Heart Huckabees < Naomi Watts

So we start playing this game Saturday, and everything else took a back seat. All we did was name actors and movies while our bodies kept doing other activities like eating, driving, and playing other games. At one point, in attempting to like Robin Williams to Jack Black, we kept circling back to Robin Williams. The game can get confusing.

So Sunday, I'm on my way to my brothers' baseball game, when I bring the game up. Everything is going great until my youngest brother suggests Meg Ryan to Drew Barrymore, which we don't solve before arriving at the ball field. Long story short, I place all the blame for my brother's error on a fly ball to left field on "six degrees" and his mind wondering: so wait, Meg Ryan was in...with whats her name, who was in...oh fuck the ball! They won, despite Meg Ryan.

The game was like no other I've ever been to. This was my first time at a non-high school, non-college game that didn't involve being at Camden Yards or RFK. You see, my brothers are playing in a semi-semi-pro league that has existed since 1886. There are teams in cities throughout Maryland, and these people take their baseball seriously. Lining the chain-link fences along the base-paths were throngs of old men talking trash. Serious trash:

"What the hell is wrong with you boys? You're bunch of sissy girls, the bunch of you! I'll fuck you up if you don't play some god-damned ball! I'm fifty years old and I ain't afraid of any one of ya!"

Yikes. A far cry from the -- relatively -- quiet stands of a Little League game. These guys would grind on you, and they wouldn't let up. One error, and they'd be on you the entire game. And it wasn't limited to players; umpires, coaches, opposing fans, and even the damned PA guy.

"That guy says 'last-call for lottery tickets' one more time I'll go over there and stab him! It's fixed anyway - someone from Charles County always wins! I was born on a farm, you can't put that shit over on me!"

The other weird interesting part of the league was that it was all ages. I saw a 46 year old hit a home run off of a twenty-something, and it didn't involve Julio Franco.

I was sad when the weekend had to end, and I had to get on another damn bus back to NYC. I need to find another way to travel.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

In the last two weeks, I've gone from this:



(the Nike 500 miles run club) to this:


I can't claim any real innocence; after all, I asked for this job, and I really want to do well. I've been staying late of my own volition.

Still, it's kind of striking. I haven't been to the gym in over a week; I haven't seen my girlfriend in almost two weeks; I've been putting in ten and twelve hour days(or more) - it gives pause, to say the least.

After dinner with a close friend -- who warned me of his similar experiences at his last job -- I've decided I need to set some better boundaries at work. There has to be a balance. If I learned anything from The Karate Kid, it's the need for balance. If you have no balance, you end up in a freezing lake. A very important lesson, second only to "if you do Karate 'I guess so', squish! - just like grape!".

I do love my new work. It's stimulating, creative, and for the most part, fun. I'm still getting used to this new, strange city - and it's success-driven work culture.

"If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere". That's what they say about New York. Maybe, just maybe, if I get the balance right, I will make it. Then this will be me:

All I Do Is Post Videos Now

But this one is hilarious:

Don't Look Him In The Eye...

...or he'll steal your soul:

I May Have Spoken Too Soon

Ugh, I feel sick. I've been eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking water, and exercising in a vain effort to prevent any illness. Maybe I can still win, but today feels like it could be the tipping point towards failure. Sheesh.

I bought some cold medicine from a nearby Duane Reade, took some, and left the box at work. So, soon I'll rest and forget about all the work that still has to be done. At least, when it's finished, I'll have something great to show for it.

Hopefully.

I'm watching the World Series of Pop Culture, and I have to route for Westerberg High, in honor of The Replacements' lead singer Paul Westerbeg. Great name for a trivia team. Of course, Carlton Banks dance academy isn't too bad either. Appropriately, Westerberg High won the music category. Also, I find it not only hilarious that "sugartits" was an answer, but that VH1 had to bleep "tits".

This weekend I'll be visiting the family and taking part in Magic: The Gathering World Wide Game Day. Yep, I'll be waving my freak nerd flag high. Should be a relaxing, fun time.

Tomorrow is the photo shoot,; hopefully I'll feel better by then. Until then, here are...

The De-Stressing From Work Hits Of 7/11

1. "Stars and Sons", Broken Social Scene
2. "Life Of Pain", Black Flag
3. "Seen Your Video", The Replacements
4. "Strawberry Fields", Ben Harper
5. "Bartering Lines", Ryan Adams
6. "Fly That Know", Talib Kweli (feat. MF Doom)
7. "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy", Queen
8. "Stay Positive", The Streets
9. "Little Cream Soda", The White Stripes
10. "The House That Guilt Built", The Wrens
11. "Rolling Back", My Morning Jacket
12. "What's Going On", Marvin Gaye
13. "Time Of The Season", The Zombies

I'm Not Dead Yet

The subway stops in NYC aren't air conditioned. That's important to note, because I'm from DC, where they -- for the most part -- are. Or their at least cool. So, when I emerged from the Times Square station I was already pretty miserable, suffering from swamp crotch(thanks UB) and longing to get to the office water cooler as quickly as possible. Then, in the bright New York sunlight, there was nothing. But the stench.

I felt cliche thinking that it smelled like shit, until I saw a truck that read NYC Free Waste Control. So, it was literally shit, being pumped out of the street. Or into the street, who knows. Anyway, the smell made me think of my blog.

I've been gone for a few weeks, and like many things left unattended, this blog has started to reek. My apologies to all six readers. If you still remain.

Anyway, I know I promised pictures from my high school reunion. And I would have them, if not for the fact that I started drinking and socializing first, and completely forgot I had a camera.

The reunion was fun. I had people tell me I looked exactly the same, and others tell me I looked completely different. Most people looked the same to me, and hardly anyone looked like they had put on a few. Well, maybe a couple. I hung out, reminisced, and drank. Afterwards, I ended up at an after party with all the cool people who wouldn't have been caught dead with me ten years ago. And what was I missing out on all those years ago? Drinking, hanging out, and reminiscing, though ten years ago I'll bet there was more sex than reminiscing.

What else has happened since then? Oh, this Thursday I will have my first professional photo shoot. The ad agency I work for decided to go in-house for a sunglasses campaign, and against all odds, I was picked along with four other guys to take part in the photo shoot. Doesn't guarantee I'll be used in the campaign, but I get a free pair of sunglasses and some professional head shots. Not a bad deal.

I'll try not to go AWOL for this long ever again, though the way work has been going, I can't promise anything, My team is up against an arguably impossible deadline, and we've all been putting in extra hours.

Hopefully things will let up soon.

Temporarily Blind

I'm hideously vain, it seems. Or maybe just a little. You decide:

My ten year high school reunion is this weekend, and for reasons I can't really explain, I'm very excited. Part of it is, after a month or so in New York, this will be my first trip home and I will get to see my family, friends, etc. And I'll get to drink with some of them. The other part is, like most nerds, I want to show everyone I went to high school with how much I've changes. There, I said it. I can explain it, it's just embarrassing.

One very noticeable change is I no longer wear glasses. In high school, I not only wore glasses, I wore huge, thick glasses. The kind that Buddy Holly would refuse to wear because they were too geeky(this was true of every year except my senior year, I think, when I adopted more sensible frames). So I'm excited to show up sans-two of my four eyes. Then, yesterday, disaster struck.

I'm down to my last pair of lenses before I need to order new ones. I thought, for some reason, they would last until the reunion. Having just moved, I hadn't found a new optometrist and my vision insurance card hadn't -- and still hasn't -- arrived in the mail. A long-winded way to excuse myself for not having a back-up pair of lenses. So yesterday, my left lens develops a tear, and promptly disintegrates in my hands.

Oh-fucking-no...what am I going to do? I thought. I am NOT wearing glasses to this thing...think...think...eye exam? lenses? in two days??

The thought of going to that reunion wearing glasses flat-lined my excitement. I don't want people to see me as I was; I want them to see me as I am now!

Sure, my hair is a lot longer, scraggly, I'm not as helplessly skinny, and I'm not as socially inept as I was -- but goddammit -- I don't wear glasses anymore! That's the important thing that everyone should see.

Everyone being an entity that has yet to be defined. I have no idea who will come, who I will remember and who will remember me. It could all be an empty exercise, like doing squats while eating a Big Mac.

So, I had an eye exam this morning, and luckily -- despite astigmatism in my right eye -- they had a pair of lenses in stock I could wear while waiting for my prescription to come in. Disaster averted.

Someone better notice. I'll try and post some pictures of the hopefully splendid event.

The Secret At Subway

I'm a big fan of Subway. That is, I eat there semi-regularly. That's right, I moved to New York only to grab lunch at a chain restaurant. Does it remind me of home? Is a six inch club comfort food, keeping me anchored in a strange new world? Or am I just lazy? Who knows.

During one of my recent jaunts to a Subway, I spied something peculiar behind the counter. Not a rat, a cockroach, rotting veggies or a snotty rag. Something much more vile: a copy of Rhonda Byrne's The Secret.



Much has been written already debunking this book, so I won't get into the ridiculousness of the "law of attraction" and the re-cycled, re-hashed version Byrne springs on the world. To me, though, this book is blatantly immoral. It preys on human insecurities, and it teaches people to blame themselves for things beyond their control. This book advocates the idea that thinking poor, makes you poor. Can I get a big, Steve Tyler bellowing sized WHAT THE FUCK?

It also says, at one point, that to lose weight, you should simply avoid looking at fat people. You read that correctly. Don't change your eating habits, don't exercise, just avert your eyes when Fatty Fatty Fat Fats walks by. That's fucking brilliant.

Send positive vibes out into the universe, and it will respond. Wish for things. Fine. I wish for the utter and complete failure of Rhonda Byrne. Give me that, you stupid fucking secret.

Oh wait, that's not a positive vibe. So it won't work. There are always loop holes; easy ways to explain why whatever new-age hooey won't work for you. For example, you can't just wish to be out of debt, you have to wish for it by just imagining yourself with lots of money. The Secret teaches that if you dwell on your debt, the universe will interpret this as negative feelings toward money, and won't send you any. Kind of like an emotional ATM.

This is easy to see in the real world, people with money are happy. Happy people get money. Hahahaahaha, why didn't I see that before? I must have been running in circles.

The Runner Who The Race Outran...

AndHereComeThePretzels (an impossibly great name for a sports blog) has a great piece on Lavar Arrington, who was recently in a motorcycle accident on the Capital Beltway. Once the face of the franchise, it was unthinkable that his career would end the way Big Ben celebrates Super Bowls.

Lavar had it rough as a Skin. Every year, it seemed, he had a new coach and a new defensive scheme. The Skins had Marvin Lewis for one year, and everyone hoped -- as AHCTP points out -- that Lavar would turn into Ray Lewis + LT(honored by his number, 56). Never really happened. Spurrier, then Gibbs, then injuries, then Synder; it was all too much. He should have stayed here. Snyder and Lavar should have put their differences and egos aside and gotten a deal done.

Didn't happen. Still, we had some good times. Lavar ended Troy Aikman's career with one of the most vicious hits I've ever seen. He triggered the winning streak that saved Marty Schottenheimer's only season in Washington from being a losing one, with an interception return for a touchdown against Carolina. Those hilarious Eastern Motor commercials.

Did you know he was named in honor of Levar Burton? Neither did I; thanks Wikipedia. For some reason, that's comforting.

In other Redskin related news, our overlord Dan Snyder bought the American Bandstand franchise today. Which means he owns the New Year's Rockin' Eve broadcast, the Golden Globes, the American Music Awards, and the Academy of Country Music Awards. This means Tom Cruise should be a shoe-in for a Golden Globe next year(Snyder is invested in Cruise's production company), Mark Brunell will have a front row seat at the ACMAs, and Jason Campbell will be a presenter at the AMAs. Unless Campell gets injured, then Brunell will present.

I can't help but think Snyder is brutalizing the world of business to make up for the lack of on-field success the Skins are having; almost like he has to make up for one part of his empire's incompetence by conquering even more territory in the world of business. It's not enough that the Redskins are one of the most profitable sports franchises in the world, no, he has to own more, more, and more. I can't understand why everything he buys -- theme parks, Bandstand, Johnny Rockets, etc. -- has a 1950s feel to it, though. The Skins were horrible then. You would think he'd be buying 80s-era businesses: investing in arcades, producing the next Rambo and Rocky movies, or giving away vintage boom boxes at every home game.

Now I have no real basis for this, and I'm not saying he wouldn't have bought American Bandstand if the Redskins had won the Super Bowl, but...well no, that is what I'm saying.

Shooting Hoops

I try to take in a lot of advice, on a variety of things, and then go Bruce Lee on it: discard what doesn't work(for me), and stick with what does. Sometimes, the source affects how well I listen. When a former artillery office of the Israeli Army gives me advice to up the arc on my jump shot, I listen.

Saturday evening I was shooting solo at the courts at Riverside Park, when an older Jewish man rode up on his bicycle and asked if he could shoot with me. I said of course, a little wary because -- this being New York -- I still believe anyone is capable of being a serial killer.

After warming up a bit, he was out shooting me. His shot motion was old school, the way you'll see jump shots taken in the WNBA or NBA archival footage: the jump and the shot are all one motion. Eventually, I started matching his consistency. Then he made about ten 17-18 footers in a row, from all around the court. The only thing I had on him at that point was my three-point range; still, it wasn't a competition or anything, just friendly shooting around.

Amazingly, basketball was not his game. When the group of four young kids behind us let their ball get away from them, my shooting companion cradled the errant ball with his foot than launched the ball 60ft with one swift kick, bending it right into the hands(ok, the gut) of the nearest kid. Damn.

He told about watching the then world champion Washington Bullets play the Israeli National team in 1978, and lose, by four points. He told me about being a sky marshal on Israeli airplanes, traveling to New York in the seventies and seeing the great Knick teams play.

It was a good afternoon.

Courtesy Of The Make A Wish Foundation

I'm blatantly aping a great writer when I say, I am not qualified to live here.¹

Here not being the city of New York, but rather the Upper West Side, or UWS² for short. This is a place for blue-blooded WASPS, not a guy whose Prince George's County accent routinely comes up("I ain't got no cash, shiiit..."). The streets are lined with the upper-middle class, their stores, strollers and dogs. The nearest grocery store is more expensive than anywhere I shopped in DC, and I used to live near the Watergate Safeway. Sure, it carries frozen pizza, but only in personal size. It also carries brick oven frozen pizza, which defies explanation. The McDonald's downstairs delivers, and it has to, because no one who lives here goes in for anything other than a McFlurry, and those they eye with delight the way they might sample an exotic treat while on some far off safari sabbatical.

Finding myself here, I wonder; I ponder; I ask myself:...how did I get here?

Even at work, it seems, I find myself in another world. If I overheard a conversation at my old job, it was about babies, television, current events, and pop culture. Now, if I overhear a conversation, I don't know what it's about, because it's in French. Which is great, but still makes me feel like JoJo the idiot circus boy, who won a contest and gets to work at an ad agency and shack up in Miff and Buffy's neighborhood.

¹Chuck Kolsterman.

²I only know this because my GF pointed it out when Craigslist apartment ads began to confuse me.

Friday, Thank God

What a long week it's been. Work has been draining, but ultimately rewarding. I've finally been moved away from all the floor-ripping and empty desks, and now I sit among actual human beings. The only bad part is I'm in the section of the building that is having it's bathrooms remodeled, so I have to go down a floor to use the facilities. That, and now I sit within a few arms lengths of the producer of my current project. My boss, basically, but it seems weird to call him that since I potentially have many, many bosses. Not that he is a bad guy or a slave-driver or anything, it's just...not my style.

I've discovered, much to my delight, that I live within a few blocks of both a Loews Theater and a Barnes & Noble. I'll be spending a lot of time at both this summer. I already paid the B&N a visit, buying a couple of books on New York, some titles for work as well as a new Nirvana biography. Summer reading at it's best(except for the work books).

Speaking of my neighborhood, it amazes me how relatively crowded the streets are after nine. It always looks like a party just let out somewhere. One more thing to get used to. Along with the fact that I somehow didn't realize that my new apartment does not have a microwave. Instead of instant oatmeal, I have three to five minute oatmeal. Which is just as good, except for the additional cleaning.

One thing I'm very glad my apartment has, is a working air conditioner. The New York sun isn't at Heat-Death-Ray readiness yet, but it's getting there. With only one room to serve, my AC unit will have no problem keeping me cool all summer. Hopefully.

One thing I thought about, late last night before I fell asleep, was the movie Big. I'm sure someone else has said this before, but don't you think it really weirded out the Josh's mother when her son grew up to look just like the guy she thought kidnapped him? Or did Josh go out of his way to grow a beard/mustache? Also, could you convict Elizabeth Perkins character of statutory rape? Or would the illusion of age be enough to dodge the charges?

I need to sleep more.

The View

The view from my new apartment. I'll have to enjoy this, since it's only for the summer. I had to work late tonight, but at least it's rewarding work. Plus, the week is half over. Come on weekend!

I Wish Mr. Brooks Would Visit Mr. Happy Fun

That was a two day weekend, right? It felt like three. Come Sunday, it felt like I had been away from work for a long time. I guess that means I had a good weekend. It didn't start out good, it started out with over-priced, over-cooked fillet mignon.

My girlfriend and I had dinner in Little Italy Friday night. We stopped at the first place that served bread and appeared air conditioned. After being seated, the waiter asked us if we needed to see the wine list. I said no, since I wasn't in the mood and my girlfriend doesn't drink...usually. Looking down at the menu, I didn't see his reaction, but my girlfriend said he seemed pissed. Great, it's going to be one of those nights, I thought.

Don't get me wrong, I mean, I get it. Wine, appetizers - they all add up, which to a waiter usually means a bigger tip. Don't be visibly pissed though. It's not my duty to order over-priced wine. Okay, mister waiter? No hard feelings, right?

So, naturally, we received no bread. Other tables, that were seated after us? Oh they got bread. I, however, had to ask for it. So that's how it is, mister waiter? Mister happy fun? Got it.

My fillet mignon -- which I had never actually had before, I just enjoyed saying fillet mignon -- was decent. I may be a complete philistine, but I prefer steaks at Outback to what this restaurant was serving. And whoever fixed my girlfriend's spaghettia alla carbonara went nuts with the garlic and salt, pushing the limits of edible. We will not be going back there, despite the ringing endorsement from Time Out, circa 1999, quoted on their website.

After having missed one showing of "Mr. Brooks" downtown, we opted for a late showing at the 86th street Loews. The show was at 12:15, and they let us in the theater at...12:15. We waited in a, albeit short, line for about a half hour. For the first twenty minutes of that wait, the line was three people deep: me, my girlfriend, and a baseball-cap wearing, sweaty loner. "Mr. Brooks" was surprisingly good; Costner and Hurt had moments together that were very creepy. They should patent that joint laughter act and go on the road, creeping people out. Dane Cook was serviceable, and Demi Moore can now say she owns the most realistic portrayal of a millionaire cop ever filmed. Wil Smith in Bad Boys has nothing on her. So, a good ending that salvaged an otherwise horrible Friday night.

Saturday, things were much better. We went to Ooki, a Sushi/Japanese restaurant on the Upper East Side. Easily the best Japanese place I've been to in New York. The service was friendly and quick. The atmosphere was chill; the open-air dining room felt fantastic on a warm summer night. The drinks, especially the plum wine, were delicious. Ooki earns special praise for pacing the salads, appetizers, and entrees so we never felt rushed or neglected. The duck spring rolls, the shrimp tempura, and the best chicken teriyaki I've ever had make Ooki my new favorite dining spot. My girlfriend, not one to hand out praise, said the sushi was the best she'd ever had.

We went to see "Knocked Up", which -- thought not has laugh out loud hilarious as "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" -- was still hilarious and heartfelt. If you haven't seen it yet, well, too bad. People applauded at the end of the film, though these days I find that happening a lot more than I remember it. I mean, people applauded at the end of the third Pirates movie as well. And while, yes, I can appreciate some of the non-blockbuster sequences Verbinski sneaked into the movie -- the sand crabs, multiple Jack Sparrows were very surreal and effective -- I don't think the overloaded, under-plotted film deserved applause. A thoughtful "hmmm"? Sure.

Sunday was spent moving the rest of my stuff over to my new apartment, shopping, and then finally, relaxing.

Which is good, because it looks to be a long week.

Music From The Motion Picture

Romantic comedies, unless they are based on Nick Hornsby novels and star John Cusack, don't usually inspire me to buy music. Throw in Jennifer Aniston, and the chances go from slim to Ritchie.

So it's with some surprise that I sit here listening to Wreck Your Life by The Old 97's after watching The Break-Up. The movie was hilarious. I never tire of Vince Vaughn, and Aniston is always great as the girl who is just a little too hot for you(so maybe your hilarious personality can make up for it). Justin Long makes a disturbing cameo, however, that will make your stomach churn and your brow bunch up in revulsion. And I like Justin Long.

Wreck Your Life is a great mix of rock and country. "Victoria" is a great, sad story-telling opener. "W-I-F-E", an ode to leaving your better-half rather than just cheating, is as pure country as you can get. The fact that the song insists on spelling "wife", talking in code, is fantastic. "Dressing Room Walls" paints a vivid picture of dying on the road, and the album ends -- appropriately -- with "Goin', Goin', Gone" which is surprisingly not an ode to the long ball. Check this band out. None of the songs performed in the movie appear on Wreck Your Life; the album(from 1995 and their second album) just seemed to be a good starting point. There is a best of from Rhino that looks pretty good.

It's Really Big...No, Bigger Than That...It Was Big

Time to get my geek on. Ever wonder how big the Starship Enterprise D was? Well, take a look how it stacks up to various Seattle landmarks(click through to RFjason.com):



Neat. Interestingly, "Starship" is not recognized by the Blogger spell checker. It wants to change it to the "Steamship" Enterprise D, and I have to admit, a steam-punk Enterprise would be kind of cool.

Above Ground, Where The Warlocks Really Are

At my old gym, in the heart of DC's Chinatown, the facility was buried in the bowels of the complex of buildings that had sprung up around the Phone Booth(the erstwhile MCI Center, now going by Verizon). It was the official gym of the Washington Nationals, which is a lot like the Washington Generals sponsoring a basketball court(I kid, I kid...the boys in Federal Red are actually playing well lately, almost .500 ball since a 1-8 start). Being twenty feet underground brought one very appreciated blessing: cell phones were useless.

At my new gym, near Times Square in NYC, the gym floor and locker rooms are actually two stories above ground. Now no one is dumb enough (yet) to bring a cellphone onto the gym floor -- though I have seen some crackberries -- but the locker room is apparently a no-holds-barred zone. Conversations with colleagues, friends, and significant others abound.

The topic is usually mundane: business, errands, what to TiVo, etc. What's interesting, at least to me, is that no one is the least embarrassed to say where they are calling from, or what they are doing. I often hear:

"Yeah, I'm in the gym locker room...toweling off, putting on my pants...anyway..."

It's very nonchalant. Since modesty is not an issue, I think they should go a step further:

"Yeah, I'm in the gym locker room...toweling off my testicles, spread-eagle...putting on my pants, sans underwear, doing a nice tilt-a-whirl impression as I'm trying to balance the phone while getting dressed, mooning three or four people in the process..."

Why leave out any details?