Shyablog

Beating Children (in a Roller Derby Halloween Costume Contest)

2009-10-29T14:11:00.008-04:00

People often ask me why I don't drink. I give various answers: that I never quite acquired a taste for it, that I'm cheap, that there was an incident in kindergarden, etc... All true (mostly), but the short answer for my tea-totaling is that there's very little I can imagine doing drunk that I wouldn't also do while sober.

Which brings us to last Saturday night. I went to the Gotham Girls Roller Derby Post-Season Showdown, where both the Brooklyn Bombshells and the Queens of Pain faced off against Seattle's Rat City Rollers. In between bouts they hold their annual Halloween Costume Contest.

In last year's contest, there were only 4 entries. Two with rather run-of-the-mill, store-bought costumes (I think a pirate and a sexy something or other), one person with goth/ren-faire attire and a nice set of prosthetic horns, and then one cute, hipsterish girl dressed as an abstract zebra. (I'll let you guess who won that contest.) I remember at the time kicking myself for not dressing up, as I think it was an easily winnable contest.

Not wanting to miss the opportunity again this year, I suited up as

an oldie, but goodie: the wind-powered, Affirmative Action inspired Samurai from The Superfriends. I even took the time beforehand to tailor the costume so it would seem less diaper-like. I was confident.

And then I saw my fellow contestants. Five-year olds. Nary another adult to be seen. I'd be competing against adorable, little children for gift certificates to a Halloween store.

Fortunately, I'm not a proud man.

There were four of the little buggers. Two were quickly weeded out by show of applause - the first was a kid with a strap on tiger mask, and the second who was wearing the ninja mask that was part of a third kid's costume. So it was down to me, an adorable little witch girl and the even more puckish little half-ninja child, to whom someone had given an inflatable guitar, transforming his off-the-shelf Power Rangers ensemble into a "Guitar Hero" getup.

Guess who came in third. Against 2 kids.

As I said, I'm not a proud man. $50 gift certificate, baby... Kaze no Yō ni Hayaku!!

The Putting Lot

2009-10-02T14:57:00.004-04:00

It's your last weekend to combine the inspiring spectacle of public installation art with the joys of Putt-Putt Golfing! It's The Putting Lot, and it's closing Sunday, October 4th!

Head out to Bushwick, where a mere $5 will get you a ball, club and the chance to play on 9 putting holes designed by 9 different artists in a formerly empty lot deep in East Brooklyn. Mostly designed from reclaimed materials, the different installations range from a pink soda bottle forest and lake to a storefront bodega where you have to shoot your ball through an old stand-up video game. The first hole is a clever simple stretch of "green" that is simply a photo poster of the garbage that was in the exact spot where the green sits.

It's easy enough to get to. Just take the L-Train out to the Jefferson stop, get out at the Jefferson/Wycoff exit and walk a block to 12 Wycoff. Done. Afterwards, grab some cheap tacos from the highly rated Tortilleria Mexicana Los Hermanos, a few blocks away at 271 Starr Street (between Wyckoff Ave & St Nicholas Ave). There's a map on the link.

It's a mite chilly this weekend, of course, so take a jacket.

The Ignorance from 9/11

2009-09-11T13:16:00.005-04:00

So it's the September 11th again, the 9th time that date holds any special significance to me.

The tragedy and events of that day remains firmly etched in my mind; watching the towers fall as we ran towards downtown, walking through the smoke and falling ash, loading water into a police car, desperately wanting to help in any way possible, only to realize there was nothing else to be done.

But this week, I was reminded of the other tragic result of that day: the cultivation of unapologetic ignorance in the United States.

I was reminded of it as I watched Representative Joe Wilson, Republican from South Carolina shouted "You lie" at President Obama as he was giving an address on healthcare reform to a joint session of Congress. Joe Wilson was wrong. The facts prove that he's wrong. Yet for political and, no doubt, financial reasons (he has received about half a million dollars from the health care industry), he clings to his extremely disrespectful, harmful and blatantly untrue accusation.

We as a country have been divided, not in two, but three groups. On one side you have liberals and progressives, who, while often at odds on several issues, generally agree in spite of themselves.

But on the other side, you have two distinct groups. Those who are genuinely ignorant, having been misinformed or not informed at all, who refuse to try to learn more and instead blindly cling to their anger, bigotry and cynicism. And then there are those who DO know better, but purposefully and unabashedly foster ignorance and fear in others, in order to achieve their own financial and political gains. I go back and forth on which ones are worse.

This, then, is the second, and far more insidious tragedy of 9/11. Being forced to watch as some portion of our family, friends and fellow citizens get dragged down into a quagmire of lies and deceit. Some are, in fact, good, decent people, who have just been lied to about what the real problems and who the real enemies are.

For myself, I lost a lifelong friend to this second tragedy. It was back in 2003; a fellow I've known since I was 3 years old was supposed to come up to NYC with his girlfriend. I had emailed him to see if that was still happening, if he needed a place to stay, etc...

His response was completely out of left field. I had been doing some light campaigning for Wesley Clark at the time and he had received several of my mass emails on behalf of the General. When my friend wrote back, it wasn't to make plans for his NYC visit, it was to berate me about my liberalism. He accused me of forgetting about the attacks on the twin towers, of somehow siding with the terrorists. He then went on to criticize my decision to pursue an acting career in NYC, telling me to "grow up" and stop being a dreamer.

The irony of these various personal attacks baffled me. For one, while I was in New York on September 11th, 2001, he was in Florida, unemployed, probably asleep, possibly hungover, and here he is accusing me of forgetting a catastrophic event I witnessed first hand? As for the attacks on my life choices, here's a guy who dropped out of college and moved to Florida to just hang out and party, whose life decisions and dreams I ALWAYS supported and encouraged, telling me to grow up. Ridiculous.

And the worst part was, it wasn't him. It wasn't the guy I grew up with, who confided in me about his family troubles. Even after we grew apart with age and distance, we had a bond that was supposed to be like one of family. Yet here he was, brainwashed by conservative talk radio, attacking the guy with whom he had spent countless weekends watching TV, playing tennis, exploring in the woods, growing up together. And for what? Ignorance and lies.

And what I find terribly tragic is that, thanks to the corporate propaganda machine that is Fox News Corp, there is nearly half an entire generation of people in this country that are going to grow up with these selfish, racist, and small-minded ideologies pounded into their brains. They are going to grow up afraid of change and without real empathy for either their community or their fellow man. And just plain ignorant.

That's just incredibly sad.

My "Insomnia"

2009-09-11T06:17:00.003-04:00

People often refer to themselves as insomniacs. Sometimes it's caused by physical reasons, and in other cases it's anxiety or depression.

For myself, as I write this at 6:21 am, I've never really felt comfortable referring to my night owlishness as "insomnia." It's more just... laziness.

Not that I'm too lazy to fall asleep, though sometimes that's how it feels. It's more like my subconscious mind doesn't feel as though I've accomplished enough during the day, and it's forcing me to stay awake in the hope that I'll be productive before I close my eyes.

Take today for example. Granted, I'm a bit sick, but there's still plenty I could have done. And I did none of it. Intellectually I know that, if I had just accomplished A, B and C on my To Do list, I'd feel much better about myself and be just that many more steps closer towards achieving my various goals in life. And there's no real anxiety about not know what to do with myself - I know the path I need to walk, I just find myself rolling in the poisonous weeds right next to it instead.

So now, I'm wide awake, watching the sunlight slowly illuminate my Western window view, knowing that, because of said sunlight, I'll probably only get four, maybe five, hours of sleep.

Which I'll finally get around to once I hit "Publish Post." Because in my current, pathetic drought of motivation, even just rattling off these few paragraphs will be enough of a fix for my strung out sub-conscious mind to let me go to sleep.

::time passes::

Heh... I just paused for a bit, staring at the screen. That's the other part of my subconscious, the part that likes to keep me from succeeding at pretty much anything constructive. It's rather insidious and, unfortunately, incredibly effective at it's task.

But now, at 6:32 am, I prevail. Knowing, of course, that the cycle will begin all over again tomorrow.

Well, at least tomorrow I have plans to take a salsa lesson...

So, I'm told I should write a book...

2009-09-09T17:23:00.004-04:00

Last week I had drinks with the brother and sister book editor (sister) and Colbert Report writer (brother) who had attended my Godzilla lecture. They had been encouraging me to develop it into a book or some other type of thing.

The get together was not momentous; I wasn't being offered a book deal or anything. Just a little chat about the current state of books and a bit of a writer's pep talk over a few beers (or water, in my case). Apparently the cute-in-that-incredibly-enticing-nerd-girl-with-those-glasses-you-know-the-ones-way editor gives people she feels are good writers this little shove in the right direction... once. Though she did say she'd prod me again in 6 months, which made me feel special.

However, now I'm left with the rather dangerous thought that I'm a good writer. I've never really thought about it too much; I've always felt I was far too prone to using run-on sentences, semi-colons and ellipses to really consider myself anything more than a hack. Yet here was this obviously-smarter-than-me-about-books person telling me that, no, I actually am a decent writer.

Well, at any rate, it'd be a nice creative option to fall back on when I completely stop exercising or taking care of my physical health in any way, shape or form.

Which starts... oh, 2 years ago.

I guess I should start writing.

An Open Letter to President Obama

2009-08-17T00:10:00.003-04:00

Dear Mr. President,

The majority of the American public, and certainly near total majority of the people who VOTED for you, want a PUBLIC OPTION now.

Do not cave to imagined pressure from a bunch of vocal, lying conservative pundits, who are using the same tactics to fight healthcare reform that they used to get us into the quagmire that is Iraq. They are in the minority and, more importantly, in the WRONG.

You have the chance to do something amazing. Live up to your moment in history. Be the man your children, your parents, your grandparents and your supporters hope you to be. Be bigger than the hopes of your country. Be the President of the United States of America, sir.

Please.

Sincerely and with greatest hope and optimism,

Shyaporn Theerakulstit

First Generation Asian American Citizen

Write to him yourself at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Let them know that you, the American people, want true healthcare reform, and that it cannot happen without a PUBLIC OPTION.

ShyaFarm 1.0

2009-08-11T13:03:00.056-04:00

For the 18 years I've lived in New York I've longed for an outdoor space. I'd always ask people I'd meet who had outdoor spaces how they found their place, peppering them with questions about their rent, what they were going to plant, how long they'd lived there, etc... I always imagined that should I ever be fortunate to move into a place with a little land attached, that I'd take advantage of the situation.

So, when we found our new apartment in Astoria last fall, aside from it's quirkiness, location and size, one of the big selling points was the presence of a backyard. It's a relatively large backyard, maybe 25' x 30', and, though most of it is covered with a concrete deck, it still has a sizable four foot wide strip of earth along three sides, and other random patches as well.

And so it began last October and November, buying a cheap but decent, workable shovel and trolling for affordable flower bulbs in the clearance section at Home Depot. I settled on tulips, with a side of irises. I turned the soil along the far wall, where the solitary existing bit of greenery lived; a tall Tree of Heaven - essentially a large weed-tree, but quite solid and providing of a modicum of shade. I removed large rocks and a portion of the smaller ones, loosening the soil and raising the bed a touch. I buried the bulbs deeper than normal due to the lateness of the season and built a small stone boarder with some of the rocks I had recovered from the soil. The work spanned two or three days, and November was a bit late to be planting bulbs, but I took satisfaction in the effort nevertheless.

A somewhat delayed and mild winter gave my poor novice bulb planting the chance it needed, and sure enough, come March, I was rewarded with the first signs of life, as the tulips began to push their way through the rocky soil.

At the same time, I was beginning to see progress on a different front; I had begun vegetable seedlings in trays in my bedroom, balanced across the ironing board configuration of a scavenged Jefferson Chair.

A month later began the backbreaking work of sifting the remaining soil of all rocks, stones and foreign debris. (Literally backbreaking - I dislocated 3 ribs... with the help of a crappy fusion yoga class.) I had been given a book on bio-intensive gardening and was very intent on prepping the soil as well as possible.

So I built a soil sifter out of some hardware cloth and a dresser drawer I pulled from a garbage pile and got to work. I worked anywhere from 3 to 8 hours a day (I have a lot of free time) running shovelful after shovelful of dirt through my earth sieve. This went on for about 6 weeks. About half that time consisted of rain, but I still ended up putting hundreds of hours of work into the project. I know that seems like a lot, but consider the math.

The internet tells me a cubic foot of dirt, presumably with rocks and such, weighs anywhere from 40-80 lbs. Let's be conservative and estimate that my dirt only weighed 40 lb per cubic foot. I moved/sifted approximately 200 (?)* cubic feet of dirt. And I moved it twice (once out and through the sifter into a big pile and then back. More than twice really, as there were a lot of intermediate moves, but to once again be conservative, let's say it only went back and forth once each way. That means that, over the course of 6 weeks, I moved, by myself, 16 metric TONS of dirt. With a SHOVEL.

(*Note: These numbers need to be double checked.)

After the dirt was sifted, I created additional boarders with the large rocks, created a rock path to the water hose by our patio stairs with the remaining small rocks, and then washed all the medium sized rocks and built a small water garden/fish pond out of an old plastic storage bin.

Allow me, for a moment, to pat my own, mostly healed, back.

Around about this time, my seedlings had gotten to plantable size and the last frost date for this area had past, so in went the plants. Mesclun lettuce mixes, collard greens, broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, and more. I seeded other things such as squash, peas, carrots, beets and beans directly into the ground and began another round of seedlings for radishes and the like. Herbs went along the edges of the plots.

All that remained was to water and weed. And weed. And weed. They're relentless. It's astonishing how many weeds have managed to take root in such a seemingly small space. And the occasional slug.

The mesclun hit the soil running. After what seemed like only a few weeks I was chewing on my first bits of mixed greens. Fresh, buttery lettuces, lightly sprinkled with balsamic and olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Fantastic.

And then, at varying rates, the other veggies began coming in. The peas took to their scaffolding like a champion, producing handfuls of lovely snap peas. The beans produced a nice harvest, but seems to be done after just one round. The nasturtiums have brightened up my salads with their edible flowers, collard greens have found themselves steamed and soupified, and the first squash died well to my pasta sauce.

And then there are the tomatoes.

At first they seemed obedient, wending their way up nicely through the bamboo and string pyramids I'd built for them from scratch. They looked promising; green and flowering. Then came the July rains and the tomatoes cried freedom. Crawling across the concrete, tearing down their bamboo tripods like caged animals powered by gravity and the sun, the tomatoes, both heirloom and cherry, began questioning my authority. I responded with a spiders web of cotton twine, trying to maintain some semblance of vertical stability. The maneuver worked to some degree, which only has left me with... harvesting.

It's a race against ripening with these tomatoes. Almost as fast as I can pick them, new ones ripen. The ones I've picked explode into over-ripeness in a day or two, splitting and rotting faster than I can pop them into salads or my mouth. I have a plan to enter a tomato jam making frenzy; hopefully that will help stem the tide.

So that's where I am thus far. We'll see what the rest of the summer and fall brings.

Super Secret Science Club

2009-07-16T13:11:00.007-04:00

I was invited by a new friend to keep the nerd lecture ball rolling by attending the Super Secret Science Club, a scientific lecture series that meets on the second Tuesday of every month at the Bellhouse. Last Tuesday's speaker was paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, discoverer of the Lucy skeleton, a 3.2-million-year-old early hominid, in Ethiopia.

It was AWESOME. Johanson made the material accessible without seeming watered down. He was funny, charming, flirty and appropriately bitter against religion and ignorance. He was lightly political as it pertained to the current state of science in our culture, and helped put the hard facts of his and others' discoveries into the context of the greater world at large.

He had discovered the bones in 1974, so as we watched pictures of he and his team working some 35 years ago, it was a fascinating juxtaposition of images of the younger, ambitious man and the seasoned, wiser, yet no less exuberant older man before us.

His lecture seldom dragged, and he handled the questions afterward with great aplomb, including one from a self-agrandizing moron who had clearly Wikipedia'd a catch word to use for that very night: "Could you speak regarding the TOPHOLOGY involved...," punching the word tophology (sp?) like an eager school boy auditioning for the role of teacher's pet.

The good Professor took this opportunity to PWN the punk, responding, "Actually, I was just hiking in the Rocky Mountains two days ago with a colleague when we came across a perfectly lovely deer pelvis and I pointed to it and said, 'That will never become a fossil,' and when she asked why, I said, 'Well, it's all a question of tophology, my dear.'

That's right punk, he knew the word AND had used it in context.

And then... he ended playing us a SONG about Australopithecus that someone had written for him. And said they were making a YouTube video of it. I was like, "Wha wha WHAAT?!? Ending paleontology lectures with a summary song?! That's MY bit!!!"

So in the end, I'd have to conclude that SSSC is a bit more nerdcore than Nerd Nite in the scientific branch of the Nerd world, but NN extends across the whole of Nerdery so still maintains it's street cred.

Godzilla Lecture Recap

2009-07-14T17:58:00.011-04:00

As you may know, this past Friday I presented a short lecture at Nerd Nite entitled "Godzilla: History, Biology and Behavior of Hyper-evolved Theropod Kaiju." The event took place at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, a beautiful new performance lounge in the heart of DUMBO.

I had begun my work on the presentation nearly a month beforehand (more even), but was quickly delayed by a crashed logic board on my computer, which took the Apple store 12 days to replace. So I ended up having two weeks to put together my lecture, which might seem like a lot, but I also had to reconstruct both the backing beats and video from my "Up From the Depths" Godzilla video, as all my original work had been stolen with my old Macbook Pro. So I was a bit crunched for time.

Fortunately for me, many wonderful bloggers, scientists and fans, have posted a lot of material regarding the speculative zoology of Godzilla. Using all of that available material, with a few ideas of my own, I slowly began figuring out a structure for my lecture. Headed into my final week, I had, more or less, a rough draft of about 80% of the presentation text, and started to build the Powerpoint slideshow from that. Ah Powerpoint, I've never found you useful before. Ever.

I find deadlines both overwhelming and empowering, so as Friday approached, I grew simultaneously anxious and excited. By Thursday, I could see the end in sight, which is a good sign, but I could also see how much work I had over the remaining 24-hours. Still, with a few hours to spare, everything came together and I was even able to rehearse my presentation in front of my TV as it ran my slides and felt semi-confident as I headed out to Brooklyn.

8pm, and all is fine. Gay Nerd Speed Dating is in full, if perhaps sparsely attended, swing, and the Nerd Nite host is on stage presiding over the festivities. That wraps up and shortly thereafter I find myself on stage doing tech and sound check for my impending talk/rap. There was a little scare for about 15 minutes when the video projector simply stopped working, but other than that the only hiccup was that in the end, due to various compatibility issues and missing cables, the other two lecturers ended up having to use my computer for their presentations. Macbook: 3, Thinkpad: 0.

The first two presentations go well - we learned a nice bit about both the evolution of Korean Pop Music and the Harp. Then, after a brief break and setup, it was my turn.

What followed was the most satisfying live performance of my entire career.

And what followed that was the realization that I had failed to hit record on my camera.

So I'm only left with my memories. Our host Matt provided me with an easy opening joke when he accidentally referred to the Japanese as "Japan people," and it from there I immediately relaxed. The audience was fantastic, responding to both my lecture and the accompanying slides incredibly well. The lecture may have run nearly twice as long as intended due to laugh breaks. I haven't performed live in quite some time, so the connection with the audience was intoxicating, and a hundred times so as it was my own material AND they were responding to it all.

Then I performed "Up From the Depths" live and it went pretty perfectly. End. Applause. Yay.

Following that, I had a great time during the Question and Answer section, fielding questions about Zombies vs Godzilla (Godzilla, of course), the origins of the Godzilla movie franchise and Global Warming vs Godzilla. I told the long-haired hippy who asked the climate change question that we should be more concerned about Godzilla, who is a real and present danger, than some imaginery threat of the ice caps melting in the future. I'd forgotten how much I love improvising on the spot, and this particular format was ideal for tickling this bit of my fancy.

Anyway, I'm sort of cringing sitting here tooting my own horn, even in the relatively anonymous world of internet blogging. So suffice it to say I had a great time and I think the audience did as well. A few positive blog posts about the evening:

http://mimickingmaleficent.blogspot.com/2009/07/best-weekend-ever.html

http://www.geekanerdblog.com/2009/07/some-facts-about-godzilla.html

(Yes, that's right. I Googled myself. Shut up.)

People were incredibly nice afterwards, coming up to me and giving very positive feedback. One kind fellow handed me the card to his online store and told me to pick out anything I liked and he'd send it to me. Another fellow had come down all the way from Vermont expressly for the Godzilla lecture and, I was glad to hear, wasn't disappointed.

One of the nicest compliments of the night was when a writer from The Colbert Report told me that the lecture was on the same level as that show (at which I tittered like a little school girl on the inside).

When I asked him if they were hiring, he responded, "We're never hiring."

C'est la vie =)

Public Enemies or "Dillinger: A Man and his Hair"

2009-07-13T13:28:00.010-04:00

A lot of filmmaking talent and money went into this rather boring movie that missed it's mark completely.

The movie seemed entirely too focused on how good Johnny Depp looks in deep close-up, and failed to focus on the far more interesting character of Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) and the investigation and pursuit of Dillinger. Mann makes a weak attempt to emulate (steal from) The Wire by showing us quick glimpses of the FBI's investigative process (even going so far as to cast two actors from that vastly superior show), but never fully explores this aspect of the story, choosing to pay far too brief lip-service to the detective work and the building of Purvis' task force.

Yes, the action scenes are good; Mann has always been skilled at crafting such sequences. But they are few and far between, and the between consists of watching Depp swipe away stray locks of hair from his forehead, albeit quite charismatically, and gazing meaningfully at his fellow actors. I kept waiting for "In the Air Tonight" to start playing in the background.

The movie tries to paint a detailed portrait of Dillinger in this manner, but ultimately his motivations boil down to "live life to the fullest," which is very nice for a fortune cookie, but pretty much a death sentence for a 2 1/3 hour movie. Carpe diem, we get it.

The cinematography, while very picturesque, is on the whole overly conventional, which is very disappointing considering Mann's past visual work. I suppose the argument could be made that it was purposefully understated, but there's nothing to counterpoint it through most of the movie, so it becomes ultimately ineffective. And by ineffective I mean DULL.

Basically, Brian DePalma showed us how it's done over 20 years ago, and filmmakers just keep failing to look at the damn template.

Godzilla Lecture at Nerd Nite (and the 789 YouTube Gathering)

2009-07-08T11:31:00.009-04:00

Godzilla: History, Biology and Behavior of Hyper-Evolved Theropod Kaiju

I will be presenting a 10-minute lecture on Godzilla, The King of Monsters, at Nerd Nite on Friday July 10th at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, Brooklyn. The other two presentations for the evening will be lectures on "Korean Pop Music" and "The Harp."

The price is $7. Tickets available in advance or at the door.

Nerd Nite is an informal gathering at which nerds get together for nerdery of all sorts (well, mostly presentations and drinking). Nerds and non-nerds alike gather to meet, drink and learn something new.

The July 10th lectures will also be preceded by Gay Speed Dating - tickets for that are limited, but include price of admission for the lectures!

PLEASE NOTE: This is an art space and BAR. You most probably have to be over 21 to attend; please call to confirm.

For more information and advanced tickets, go to http://nyc.nerdnite.com/

Falling Apart

2009-06-18T19:28:00.000-04:00

Through injury, aging and good, ol' fashioned slacking my body has been falling apart these past several years, and this process has only accelerated this year.

A few weeks ago I dislocated a rib, a combination of sifting rocks out of 10+ tons of soil in my new backyard and one really lousy yoga class (note to self: remember never to try anything involving the word "fusion," be it food, yoga or otherwise). Then, just as I was getting back into exercising groove, I bruised the bones in my left foot playing soccer this past Sunday. Ironically, it was the first time I'd played soccer since injuring my RIGHT foot last summer during an air guitar competition (yes... I know...). So another four weeks out of action, this time hobbling around with a cane.

It's all a bit disheartening. Still, I do have hope that I'll be able to get back on track with my physical fitness. So that I can return to doing the things I love to do, as well as start working on the creative projects that I've started (they involve a certain level of physical and martial prowess that I'm currently not at).

And in body-unrelated news, the logic board just failed in my Macbook Pro. It's now in the giant glass Apple cube on 5th Avenue. Just to let you know what kind of week I'm having.

Movies Too Expensive?

2009-05-31T21:59:00.004-04:00

Movies are now as much as $12.50 here in NYC, more if you want to see an IMax print. So I've saved you the time and expense of having to see the latest Hollywood Blockbuster films by compiling them here in short summary versions, all under a minute long.

Enjoy!

Minor Remembrance of Things Past

2009-04-26T17:38:00.002-04:00

Not terribly traumatic, but it's somewhat odd to stumble across the personal ad of an ex, featuring a picture you took of her, at a birthday party you threw for her.

If I didn't know it was her, it was the sort of ad I would normally have responded to, which is not too surprising; after all, she's pretty much the same person I met and fell for in the first place. The only difference is the knowledge of the crazy that follows.

Oh Dr. Manhattan, you're such an idiot.

A Small, Colorful Payoff

2009-04-20T16:58:00.004-04:00

Last fall's labors have bourn fruit. Or rather, flower.

The first of my tulips have bloomed!

I'm ridiculous for being this excited, but I've never really grown anything successfully from seed/bulb before.

Next stop, vegetables... I hope!

Tulips on the verge of being

Backyard Archeology: Bromo Seltzer Bottle circa 1900

2009-04-07T19:03:00.006-04:00

As I was extracting rock the size of soccer balls from my backyard yesterday, I heard a small clink as the shovel sunk into the dirt. Like a caveman, I chose to keep poking at it with the steel shovel for another minute rather than just reach down and see what it was.

Fortunately, my lack of sense was thwarted by turn of the century craftmanship, and a little luck. When I finally got my hands a little dirty, I was rewarded with a little backyard archeological find: a cobolt blue Bromo-Seltzer bottle, manufactured by the Emerson Drug Company of Baltimore, MD.

I vaguely remembered "Bromo" as a reference from old cartoons and movies, but was rather surprised when I later Googled the bottle to find numerous entries about it. What I thought was going to be a sparse search resulted in a wealth of information. It even had it's own Wikipedia page!

It's not a particularly rare or valuable bottle, but still cool as hell. I'm glad I didn't break it with my bumbling.

Below is an extract from a page about medicinal bottling:

The small cobalt blue bottle pictured to the left contained one of the most popular medicines sold in the 20th century - Bromo-Seltzer - which continues to be popular today as a headache and stomach medicine. This is a typical early 20th century Bromo bottle and is embossed horizontally with BROMO-SELTZER / EMERSON / DRUG CO. / BALTIMORE, MD. The product came in many different sizes of similar shaped bottles which were mouth-blown in the earlier years (1890s to about 1911), machine-made in identically shaped cork stoppered bottles beginning about 1911, and most likely completely machine-made by about 1915. Between 1911 and 1915 it appears that the bottles were both mouth-blown and machine-made. The cork as a closure began to disappear by 1920 with total disappearance by 1928 when the bottles were sealed by a metal seal or cap; the finish for the metal seal looked about the same as the cork bead finish. The bottles switched to external screw thread finishes in 1954 and went to plastic bottles in 1986 (Easton 1965; Fike 1987). Click mid-20th century Bromo to see an later (1950s) example with a lug type external screw thread finish which is embossed with the brand name on the heel.

Bromo-Seltzer was first trademarked in 1889 by Isaac E. Emerson. The distinctive blue bottles were first mouth-blown beginning in the 1890s up until 1907 by the Cumberland Glass Company (Bridgeton, NJ; the likely producer of the pictured bottle), though one author notes that they were also made by Hazel-Atlas (Toulouse 1971; Fike 1987). From 1907 on the bottles were produced by the Maryland Glass Corporation (Baltimore, MD), which was essentially created to produce these bottles for (and owned by) the Emerson Drug Company. Mouth-blown and likely machine-made examples with the makers mark "M" on the base date from 1907 to about 1915 which was also when Owens Automatic Bottle Machines were installed to work alongside the semi-automatic machines first installed in about 1911. Bottles with an "M" in a circle on the base date from 1916 and after. In 1956, the Emerson Drug Company was absorbed by Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Co. which is now part of Pfizer, Inc. (Toulouse 1971; Fike 1987). The pictured example was mouth-blown in a cup base mold and has mold air venting marks; it likely dates from about 1895 to 1907 since it there is no "M" marking on the base. Click on Bromo-Seltzer base to view the base of this bottle which only has a numerical mold number.

Unfriending Exes or "What am I, 12?"

2009-04-06T21:28:00.014-04:00

Ah, the wonders of the Internet.

My natural tendency towards self-flagellation, plus a tragically cat-like curiosity, has often led me to lightly cyber-stalk my former paramours through the technological marvels that are Googling and social networking sites. It's never been anything over the top: I haven't signed up for a Lexis-Nexus account, hacked emails or anything ridiculous like that. Just looking in from time to time. I suspect many folks do it in this day and age.

And it hasn't always been an unproductive process - it's enabled me to re-establish friendships with certain people, find closure with some and mourn the loss of a few who tragically passed on. But for the most part, it's pretty much a fruitless and somewhat psychologically harmful exercise.

So today when I found myself inundated with updates from a recent ex on Facebook, with pictures of her frolicking all over town with her new beau, I finally resolved to delete her from my friends list. Who needs to see all that stuff?

Still, to be honest, it took quite a bit of effort. The jealous side of me raised quite a fuss, as it tends to enjoy living in/clinging to the past. Eventually, however, I clicked the little X beside her name, thus eliminating that particular temptation towards future self-inflicted angst. Difficult, but ultimately, probably necessary.

That done, let me just say how incredibly annoying it is to get any sort of carthasis whatsoever from an action on a social networking site. I feel like I'm 12.

Culinary School Fail

2009-04-05T09:12:00.008-04:00

The other day I was in the midst of running piles of errands in Manhattan and had a sudden craving for fast food. Wendy's to be specific. What can I say, I like their chili.

So I'm sitting there with my side salad and small chili, filled to the brim with hot sauce and crackers, when I see a trio of people with chef's hats and jackets come in, obviously from some local cooking school.

Now obviously my snobbishness is a bit hypocritical at this point, seeing as I'm scarfing down a junior bacon cheese burger, but really, you're going to a cooking school and you've opted for WENDY'S for your lunch break? Come on!

But okay, I thought, maybe these folks were running short on time and just needed to eat something quickly. Entirely possible. Perhaps I'm being too quick to judge...

Except that as I was leaving, the rest of the class piled into the restaurant. Obviously this was a regular lunch destination for these future chefs.

So to whatever cooking school is located near West 14th Street in Manhattan: you FAIL.

Though I suppose this answers my question of where in the world they get cooking reality show contestants from...

(What the) Hell's Kitchen: Beef Wellington?

2009-04-02T10:26:00.014-04:00

What is the deal with Hell's Kitchen contestants not being able to make Gordon Ramsey's Beef Wellington? Once it's prepped, you literally just stick it in the oven and wait. How hard is that?

A few weeks ago I was curious as to why they were having so much trouble, so found his recipe online, then went around my neighborhood and assembled the ingredients. A small bribe got a me a lower price on a nice cut of beef tenderloin from my butcher, the Italian specialty shop on 30th Ave had some nice Parma ham, and the supermarkets provided the Coleman's mustard, puff pastry and portobello mushrooms.

It's an involved, but fairly straightforward recipe. Basically, just just wrap the damn thing, stick it in the oven and wait 35-45 minutes, depending on how well done you want it (rare, please). The hardest part of this recipe is turning the dial on the kitchen timer.

So I find it baffling that these experienced chefs who are on this show are unable to complete this simple task! Ah well, I guess it wouldn't be reality television without a touch of the surreal.

It turned out fantastic, by the way.

Gordon Ramsey has this fun little video that breaks it down into simple, albeit overly messianic, steps.

RECIPE: Gordan Ramsay's Beef Wellington

INGREDIENTS:
(I upped the amounts to 1lb from 400 grams, because .88 lbs is a rather messy number.)

1 lb (400g) Beef fillet
1 lb Portobello mushrooms
4 slice Parma ham
English mustard for brushing meat (Coleman's)
1/3-1/2 lb puff pastry
2 Egg yolks
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

METHOD:

Pre-heat the oven to 200c.

Heat some oil in a large pan and quickly fry the seasoned beef all over until it's brown. Remove and allow to cool.

The point of this is simply to sear the beef and seal all those juices in, you don't want to cook the meat at this stage. Allow to cool and brush generously with the mustard.

Roughly chop the mushrooms and blend in a food processor to form a puree. Scrape the mixture into a hot, dry pan and allow the water to evaporate. When sufficiently dry (the mixture should be sticking together easily), set aside and cool.

Roll out a generous length of cling film, lay out the four slices of Parma ham, each one slightly overlapping the last. With a pallet knife spread the mushroom mixture evenly over the ham.

Place the beef fillet in the middle and keeping a tight hold of the cling film from the outside edge, neatly roll the parma ham and mushrooms over the beef into a tight barrel shape. Twist the ends to secure the clingfilm. Refrigerate for 10 -15 minutes, this allows the Wellington to set and helps keep the shape.

Roll out the pastry quite thinly to a size which will cover your beef. Unwrap the meat from the cling film. Egg wash the edge of the pastry and place the beef in the middle. Roll up the pastry, cut any excess off the ends and fold neatly to the 'underside'. Turnover and egg wash over the top. Chill again to let the pastry cool, approximately 5 minutes. Egg wash again before baking at 200c for 35 - 40 minutes. Rest 8 -10 minutes before slicing.

Soil Sifting

2009-03-31T14:45:00.010-04:00

Oh, god, please let this be the most tedious part of gardening.

I'm in the midst of sifting all the rocks from the soil in my backyard. I made my own soil sifter with some 1/2 inch hardware cloth ($7 a yard?!?!) and a dresser drawer I found on the street. (On a side note, there are certain things which you can always find in the garbage in New York City; mattresses, broken arm chairs and sofas... and dressers.)

So now I'm going through the slow and rather painstaking process of tossing a few shovels full of dirt into the sifter, scraping dirt through, then periodically emptying it of rocks. Shovel, sift, repeat.

This is going to take me all week. But hopefully this will be the worst part and it'll all be downhill (and rock free) gardening from here.

Battlestar Galactica Finale: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb...

2009-03-24T10:52:00.011-04:00

... a pathetic, diseased, bleeding lamb.

I was a great fan of this show from the get-go; I remember defending the uneven pilot episode to all my nerd friends, pointing out the beautiful use of the Firefly-inspired outer space camera work.

This show has gone the route of other science fiction shows I have enjoyed, such as Alias and Smallville: 2 1/2 good seasons, then it lost it's way and never recovered.

::SPOILERS FOLLOW::

BSG went off track after second season, when it ceased to be about the survival of humanity and more about ridiculous religious dogma and political "intrigue". The beauty of the BSG concept, both in the original and in the new series, is the idea that when fighting for survival you will see the best and worst of humanity emerge. New BSG was doing that beautifully for the first two seasons, then just dropped it.

Also, the series suffered because they never gave the Cylons a clear purpose, except for maybe after the Resurrection ship was destroyed. Then their motivation became about survival as well, through the capture of the Human/Cylon child, but we don't even really SEE that until the final episodes.

This entire final season has made little-to-no-sense whatsoever. The characters were written with zero consistency; people were acting in a manner completely contrary to their previous behavior, acting differently from episode to episode, without any explanation whatsoever of what might of changed their personalities. The Five had little to no transition from believing they were human beings to accepting they were Cylons. And did we really need to see Admiral Adama drunk for half the damn season?

As for the final episode itself, where to begin? It's so nice of Ron Moore to have a bunch of white people from outer space come down and teach us poor humans how to be civilized. I realize that's the concept of the original series, that the seeds of humanity were from outer space, but then maybe you shouldn't kill off all your minority characters before the end, except for one. Speaking of which, it's also good to have confirmation that all Asian people do indeed look alike, since we're all apparently descended from ONE FRAKKIN' CYCLON!

What was with the ridiculous little evil robot montage at the end? Oh no, our robo-toys are going to DESTROY us! Where's Sarah Connor? Did the BSG universe arrive in the Terminator universe? And it was done so emphatically, as though the danger of robots rising up to destroy us was somehow on par with global climate change, world hunger or the AIDS epidemic.

The whole Starbuck disappearing thing. So she was an angel of some sort? Not only was that a complete cliche that's been done countless times before (and better), but they had just done the exact same moment TWO EPISODES before, with Kara and her father! A ghost having visions of a ghost?! WTF? And we never see any real moment of realization on her part, or transition into acceptance of being an angel, much like with the horrible Five Cylons storyline.

And does anyone believe that 30,000 people, who throughout the entire series couldn't agree on ANYTHING, would all suddenly agree to destroy all their technology and ships to go live in the wilderness? Ridiculous! The idea that they didn't want to repeat the mistakes of New Caprica is ludicrous; the reason their lives on New Caprica were so difficult was that it was a relatively barren planet with a narrow strip of habitable land around the equator. New Earth is resource abundant! Provided of course you have, say, the TECHNOLOGY to access those resources. It's completely unrealistic, not to mention just plain bad story writing, to think they'd just fly their fleet of STARSHIPS into the sun. (On a bit of a tangent, it made me think of a similar situation in Star Trek 8: First Contact, when the crew of the Enterprise is forced to abandon ship on the Earth of the past, and Captain Picard instructs his crew "to find a quiet corner of North America and ...stay out of history's way." Much classier.)

I will probably keep coming back to this posting and updating it with more awful things about this finale as they come back to me. It's one of those seasons that the more you think about it, the worse it gets.

Waste of a good concept, waste of a good start.

I've Sown my Seed!

2009-03-22T21:23:00.007-04:00

Late yesterday I came down with the flu, so being homebound today was the perfect opportunity to sow my vegetable seedlings for transplant after the last frost.

Now there seems to be some slight variation in suggested planting schedules from all the various sources I found on the net, but I figure if I start most of the items I want to grow from seed now, they should all be ready come mid-April, which is when our last New York frost is predicted.

I have the trays sitting on a Jefferson chair in my bedroom, in it's ironing board configuration. For those who don't know what a Jefferson chair is, it's an ingenious bit of furniture, designed of course by Thomas Jefferson, that acts as a stool, a step ladder and an ironing board, all in one.

Clever fellow, that Thomas.

UPDATE: Here's what I'm planting.

What I started today:
Broccoli, Butternut Squash, Collards, Lettuce, Mesclun, Marjoram, Scallions, Parsley, Habanero Pepper, Hot Pepper Mix, Rosemary, Sage, Spearmint, Bell Peppers, Tomatoes

And what's to come - I'll probably plant most of these direct seed into the ground:
Garden Bean, Beets, Carrots, Garlic, Peas, Radish, Spinach, Basil, Cucumber, Watermelon, Corn, Pumpkin Summer Squash, Zuccchini, Cilantro

Everything's Coming Up... Something.

2009-03-19T21:27:00.004-04:00

Yesterday in New York was a lovely and springlike 60 degrees, so I took a moment to go into our backyard (I still can't believe we have one) to do some cleaning and test the soil with my fancy new electronic soil tester. I have no idea if the tester worked as the needle barely moved, but as I was looking at the footprints the Verizon guy left in the garden, I noticed the tips of the flower bulbs I planted last November had begun to come up!

I know this is pretty minor, but it's very exciting for me, as I've never grown anything from either seed or bulb before. I don't even really remember what I planted - irises and tulips, I think, plus whatever handfuls of loose bulbs that were on the bottom of the Home Depot bin that I just scooped up and tossed in my pocket to save them from the trash.

Tomorrow I plan on starting some vegetable seedlings in a tray, as I have a little victory garden planned for the rest of the unused ground. I also need to go to the Depot to get the makings for a soil sifter, as the ground out back is filled with rocks and debris. On the bright side, I was able to make a nice little rock edging with what I pulled out from one side of the garden.

I also have tentative plans for a small, self-sustaining watergarden/fish pond. That may be overly ambitious, but on the other hand, it would save me from having to find extra soil for the garden, so it might all balance out effort-wise.

Hopefully something will grow that I can eat.

Natasha Richardson

2009-03-19T14:02:00.002-04:00

Natasha Richardson dead, age 45.

I've always found Natasha Richardson to be an actress of wonderful composure and beauty, adept at a stillness in her performances that few actors ever master. I was first exposed to her work in the film production of A Handmaid's Tale, and images of her in that piece have stayed with me.

And I find her thoroughly charming in the Parent Trap remake.

I know it seems odd, but one of the first things that sprang to mind wasn't one of her movies, but rather one of her husband's, Liam Neeson, "Love Actually." In the opening scenes, Neeson's character is delivering the eulogy for his character's wife, who had died young of cancer, as his adolescent step-son looks on. Neeson is so wracked with grief in that moment, and one can't help but imagine what the real life pain of him and their family must be like.

In any event, rest in whatever peace you sought in life, Ms. Richardson.

167.2

2009-03-18T13:04:00.011-04:00

So yesterday I bought a scale. Yes, yes, I realize weight isn't a measure of physical fitness, but for me, it's a good benchmark. Plus it was shiny. Now, right before bedtime (and again, yes, I realize this is when you're at your heaviest), I weighed 167.2 lbs. This is after a week of slowly beginning to get back into my exercise regimen with running 4-5 miles a day. This is, by far, the heaviest I have ever weighed in my entire life.

A bit disturbing for me to say the least. At 5'6", with a small to medium frame, I am clinically overweight. To look at me, this would be a ridiculous assertion to most; I carry this extra weight pretty evenly across my entire torso. But for the creative projects I'm interested in, this is a nightmare scenario. Aesthetically, this extra weight doesn't suit the roles I'm both pursuing and writing for myself. Aside from the simple visual aspect, I can't move or perform with the needed speed, power or grace for any of these roles either.

Just 4-5 years ago I was 140 lbs (138 lbs in the picture) and in some of the best shape of my life, and I let it slip away. Years of hard work wasted. And of course, now I'm older, it makes it that much harder for me to get back in shape.

At least it's not a mystery. I know how I got here - through injury and being distracted by the drama of romance and heartbreak. And of course, not controlling my eating and exercising regimen.

There's some good news, though. While it'll be more difficult now to get back to where I was, it's not impossible. I know exactly the things I need to do (yoga, martial arts, running/cardio, weight training, count calories), and I've gotten myself to a point where I have the luxury of being able to do those things.

It's just a matter of doing the things I need to do for myself. Unfortunately, that's always been the hardest thing in the world for me.

We'll see.