Archive for December, 2006

December 15, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Jennifer Holliday: Accept No Substitutes.

Can you imagine performing this number eight times a week? Bet not.

The purest Broadway Magic available. Unearthing gems like this could make a fanatical YouTuber out of me.

(oh yeah, my computer is back in my arms again, naked as the day it was born. I have some serious rebuilding to do this week. All the video projects I was working on were lost, so for now enjoy the Jennifer Holliday!)

December 10, 2006 | Filed under: NYC, technology

I am in a deli. I am surrounded by jars of pickled vegetables, instant Nescafe and nuts-by-the-pound. Apparantly while I wasn’t looking all the neighborhood bodegas and 99 cent stores began offering internet access for cheap. I have the following options within two blocks of my apartment:

1. This deli. A favorite local Greek spot (currently owned by a pair of devastatingly handsome brothers from Bangladesh) sporting a fabulous selection of feta, olives and international beers. Pros: always smells like fresh Spanakopita, relatively quiet. Cons: uncomfortable chairs, computers reside next to the frozen foods…too cold. No printing.

2. The candy store. One part candy/cigarette/magazine store one part kitchen appliances outlet. This is one of those weird “Everything” stores that are so prevalent in NYC immigrant neighborhoods. You can grab a cup of coffee, pick up a toaster oven and buy a gift for your Mom here…as long as your Mom would appreciate a red rose floating in a snowglobe. Now with internet and color printing! This is a major upgrade for this place: they used to only send faxes. Pros: they do not have a 30 minute minimum like the other places and will allow you 5 minutes for 50 cents. Handy for the late-for-work email check. Cons: constantly busy and noisy because of the Lotto counter.

3. The CyberCenter. This was the first dedicated internet locatation in the neighborhood. There are about 30 computers there, each with a webcam and headphones. I haven’t owned a printer since college, so when I went back to nursing school I would email myself my papers and print them here. At $3 for 60 minutes I assumed they’d be out of business in a year, but they’re still going strong probably because they charge 50 cents a page to print. Pros: cheapest place in the area. Cons: After 3pm on weekdays it’s filled with teenaged boys playing online mano-y-mano videogames at volumes you simply wouldn’t believe (the boys, not the games). And they have these weird giant black pleather reclining chairs that are probably great for gaming but are completely shitty for typing. I can’t type at such an angle.

With my computer gone for 7-10 days, I’ll be spending a lot of time in these internet joints. I have had to make a sort of Computer Contingency Plan: I can check my email twice a day in the neighborhood and catch up on blogs and videoblogs at work so long as it isn’t busy and the MDs aren’t bugging me to use the unit’s only computer for MD-related stuff (they’re always claiming that they have work to do! Imagine!).

The bummer about my computer crashing isn’t just the disappearance of everything I was working on (I was enjoying a renewed videoblogging fervor and was working on 5 different videos at once; unheard of for me), the annoyance of having to reload 350 cds into iTunes, and tons of photo loss; what really scares me is the distinct possibility that Apple will discover or invent something wrong with the computer that puts me at fault–like finding remnants of bluberry pie filling in my optical drive, for example– thereby rendering my AppleCare warantee null and void. I can barely sleep because of this. I’ve been so incredibly careful with that computer, and I’ve been so good about backing up…until this month, of course. If AppleCare refuses to fix it, the bill will be upwards of $1400. Basically that translates into “buy a new one”.

That’s a lot of overtime. And it’s Christmas. I can’t spend that kind of money on myself at Christmas.

But without a computer, I’m not sure I know who I am anymore. Isn’t that terribly sad? That’s what has really been eating at me lately.

December 7, 2006 | Filed under: technology

There’s nothing like coming home from a hard night’s work, turning on your computer and having it make an unholy horror-movie-screaming noise to rival Jamie Lee Curtis from her “Halloween” days. It started up okay, made it’s little “Happy Mac KaBong” sound, then…nothing. No desktop, no finder, no nothing. Only an apple staring back at me mockingly and a little endlessly spinning graphic. And then the screaming. Loud, maniacal screaming. Grinding of gears…nails on a chalkboard. Evil; a sound that said “You fool! You entrusted me with all your earthly information! Your banking, your photographs, your videos, your music. All the bits of your soul that can be stored on Read-Only Memory! Hah! I have hijacked it all and you will never see it again!Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!”

After I composed myself I waited the 2,560 seconds it took for AppleCare to begin manning the phone lines and ended up with this asshat:

Techie: Your problem is with a Powermac G4?

Me: No, I said it was a Powerbook G4.

Techie: (long pause) So that’s a portable computer?

Me: …

I made my sickly laptop perform for him over the phone and he said he’d never heard anything like it his whole life. Great.

I feel as if my arm has been amputated at the elbow. Y’all may not hear from me for some time. As of now I’m writing this at the local CyberStation surrounded by kids playing Quake or whatever the hell it is that kids are playing these days.

Like I said: please kill me.

December 5, 2006 | Filed under: good eatin'

Spaghetti with pan-fried garlic and pancetta.

- Slice six peeled cloves of garlic uniformly. Sautee in a pan in either unsalted butter or olive oil over a low flame until golden about 6 minutes (don’t burn or overcook or else they’ll get bitter and burnty). Halfway through, add some chopped pancetta. Or don’t, if you’re a vegetarian. Remove with slotted spoon to a towel to drain.

- meanwhile, cook spaghetti (I like “thin spaghetti” #9…angel hair isn’t strong enough for this).

- drain pasta, toss with butter (not the one you cooked with) or olive oil if you’re one of those healthy-types. Add garlic, pancetta and as much freshly grated parmesean cheese as your heart can stand (3-ish tablespoons should do it) and crushed red pepper. I actually use Shichimi Togarashi red pepper mix because it’s more finely ground and gives off more flavor than heat.

- top with a sprinkle of parm and chopped fresh parsley. Serves one.

Eat!

(and don’t let me catch you with that powdery stuff in the green can…that’s not cheese, people)

December 4, 2006 | Filed under: art, oddball

Click To Watch In Flash

or, Click Here to watch in Quicktime!

**Warning! Realistic blood and gore! (Because it is real. Duh.)*

November was Carp Caviar promo month, and I am a huge fan of all the carpyfishfun that goes on over at Bottom Union. I am also one of those people who does everything at the last possible moment (I’ve been procrastinating my whole life; drove my high school teachers nuts. I am not someone you’d want working on a 10th grade group project, or any other grade for that matter).

And so it was this year with my Carp Caviar promo. I didn’t gather the footage until after Thanksgiving, and I didn’t put the music together until the 28th, then we drove upstate to the house (no internet yet!) and the only available wi-fi is located in the center of town…sitting in the truck in the torrential rain and freezing cold to upload a video just wasn’t an appealing option. Also, the connection is weaker than the cocktails at a midtown hotel bar.

Excuses, excuses! So anyway, here it is in it’s gory glory. Did I mention it’s a wee bit gory? This is not a video for anyone who cannot stand the sight of blood or creepy surgical instruments. You’ve been warned. If bodily humours give you a case of the howling fantods, watch this or this instead.

musica= “Percussive Onslaught” by MC MissB