mountain of meat

trawling the news, i discovered this tasty morsel:

A Romanian company is accused of dumping 47 tonnes of animal carcasses on the outskirts of Bucharest...
The carcasses are rotting amid heat of 38C, just metres from a main road. Piles of black plastic bags are stacked around the dump, with bits of chicken and even horse carcasses poking through. A strong wind is blowing the stench in all directions, but more worrying is the danger to human health.

Could you say that they are perhaps suffering from a... meat wave?

the best youtube video ever?

no really, you have to watch this right now. 1500 filipino prisoners dancing... come on, just watch it.



did you watch it?

if you're curious, here's a documentary about it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=UWf3y6r0kmA

the dawning of a new age

ok, i'm 28 now. and i'm serious about blogging. that was a long break, wasn't it? sorry! i've been busy.

i had a gigantic birthday party. i'm pretty sure there were 100 people there. and a lot of them were like 19. but luckily the cops didn't come! what a party.

i went to minnesota for my birthday. my folks have a lake house in cass lake. what beauty, what tremendous silence. kayaking at dawn with osprey, eagles and heron overhead. biking the 20 mile loop around the lake through cathedrals of trees. we went and saw the smothers brothers at a local high school. i bid and made a small slam while playing bridge. most importantly, i got some time with my grandparents, who are old getting older. i love them with all my heart. and i'm coming out to california for thanksgiving to see them -- but also to see all of you who might be there for the holiday.

i was home from minnesota for about 10 hours and then headed upstate for my favorite party of the year in cornwall ny. always a joy to take the hudson line, skirting the hazy river with magical castles and sailboat. it's funny to have a group of friends that i see every six months -- every year there's a summer party and a new year's party. what a loving crew and a great scene. i forget how much i love games. playing badminton in a light rain, extreme off-road bocce, ping pong, epic battles of four square. and lots of drinking.

this has been my week of hot tubs. from tuesday through sunday i have taken at least three hot tubs every day.

and now the noise and the grit and the stench of new york has returned, and i'm not sure that i'm ready. part of a fantastic date last night included a ride across the brooklyn bridge in the cool summer wind, and although the views and company were altogether glorious, the shudder shake rattle and clang traffic below was too much for me.

that's the problem with vacations: they end.

please keep an eye on things here -- i'm back and stronger than before.

happy 4th! a story of disaster.

a little lapse there. sorry about that. i hope you've all managed somehow. i had the stomach flu for a while. but i'm better now. i actually started taking it easy for a few days and got totally sick. so from now it's full bore party time. for my health!

day three of the flu bears repeating. i probably shouldn't post this here, but what the hell? it's not like more than five people read this thing anyways.

i was at about 80%, just starting to feel recovered, when i went to bartend at a wedding. let me tell you about this complete and utter disaster. the poor bride, i really felt sorry for her. i arrive and the caterer (and my boss) is nowhere to be found. hmmm... so guests are arriving in 30 minutes and nothing is on ice? excellent. wait, we don't have enough ice? oh, and we don't have any bottle openers. awesome. so i went and found a grocery store four blocks away and dragged a sleeve of ice back to the wedding. but where is the caterer?

turns out HE IS IN JAIL! oops. the bride is his ex, and he's catering the wedding as a favor. but he's in prison. wow.

so we get the bar all set up and then it turns out i haven't been hired to bartend, i've been hired to serve food. ugh. i make my way through the crowd with candied bacon and scallops and other fine dishes but everyone is complaining. where are the rest of the servers? why aren't you serving more food? bitch bitch bitch. this is SO not what i signed up for. the bride is bitching me out. her friends are bitching me out. i'm not running things people! leave me alone. i've got a splitting headache and am feeling weak from eating nothing but chicken soup for the last three days.

i overhear someone come up to the bar we'd scrambled to set up and say, wait, you guys, there's supposed to be another bar on the other side of the room. that was the last straw. i eat the last piece of tuna tartare on my plate, grab my bag and walk out the door. god, it felt good to bail out on that chaos.

so i think the lesson is, don't let your friends cater your wedding.

oh, here's the best part. turns out the guest list was all high-ranking staff at the new york times. check out this article!!

a common theme

a friend pointed out that there are even better pictures of ugly dogs here.

that includes munchkin:



does anyone remember the movie critters? i think this is the real thing.

bong hits 4 jesus

i'm not sure what to say about this story.

other than i feel like he should have spelled hits with a z. bong hitz 4 jesus. it just flooows, ya know?

important news!

click here for the big story of the week!



it's the world's ugliest dog.

check out the competition!

do you love bruce springsteen as much as i do?

then you'll love this. or maybe you won't. genius or insanity? you decide:

the opera.

first of all, i just want to point out that i balls out love opera.

it felt so good to sit on the cool grass, watching bats dart through the dusk, surrounded by friends and listening to incredible music. we organized a big crew and sat together giggling, struggling to contain our laughter and getting glares from old people in beach chairs.

but i mean, what do they expect? most of us couldn't understand a word. i wish the met had organized some sort of supertitles. i don't speak french so i really had no idea what was going on. when the tympani came in and the organ went dum-DUM-dum, then i knew the devil was about to sing. that's about it. the main character's name was marguerita, and they kept singing her name annunciated loudly and carefully, which made it sound like MAR-GAR-IIIII-TAAA. which just made me thirsty for a margarita.

non-musical highlight no. 1: meeting a super-hot and super-smart girl.

non-musical highlight no. 2: watching a day-old blackberry drop headfirst into a container of hummus.

oh, here's a great little story. as we were leaving the park, we hailed a yellow cab and this park slope couple ran up with kid in tow yelling, no wait! that's ours, we called him! [what? you don't call a yellow cab.] wait, we have a baby! they said to the driver. he asked us, well, where are you going? cobble hill and then into manhattan, we said. he asked the couple the same question. their answer: just around the corner, a couple blocks away. sorry, the driver said. i've got to take the longer fare. what? no. we have a baby! frustrated huffing etc. we drive away.

just because you have a baby doesn't mean you can poach our cab. back off, yuppies.

not blogging

today instead of blogging i am riding my bike to prospect park, working on my tan and watching free opera.

just thought y'all should know.

the best video game ever

so i've been thinking about buying a nintendo wii for a while now. i'm tempted but heading into a beautiful summer the last thing i need is a habit that keeps me indoors.

now i have a new motivator -- i just have to wait until they perfect this video game system. the game itself looks awfully boring, but man, those controllers are awesome!

an eternal mystery

whenever i head into the office (which is more and more rare these days), i take the 4 train from borough hall. it's easy and quick and gets me to within a couple blocks of red hot after a transfer to the 6.

but it also totally fucks with my head.

i swear, the train tracks under the borough hall station defy the laws of physics.

the 4 train to manhattan should travel north out of the station. but according to every piece of my internal logic, that damned train is heading south!

here's the deal.

i walk down joralemon st, heading just about due east.

i curse yet another starbucks as i walk down the subway stairs. at the bottom of the stairs, i turn left and head north towards the gates.

i turn right (east) and walk through the turnstile.

i make a left and head north. i walk to the stairs that lead to the manhattan-bound platform.

i turn right (east again) and walk down the stairs.

at the bottom of the stairs, i turn right to face the train platform. i am now facing southeast. the train comes from my left, heading southwest. right? but manhattan is to the north!

i've always been proud of my sense of direction. if i hadn't been with my family in europe at age 16, they'd probably still be lost somewhere in romania.

but seriously, i think if i don't figure this out i'm going to go crazy. hopefully not this crazy!

pity this busy monster,manunkind,

i'd say that i lean towards a compassionate existence, trying to understand the evil in the world without resorting to hatred or viciousness.

but here's something i don't understand:

why am i so incredibly satisfied that paris hilton is going back to jail?

one cnn anchor summed it up:

“It’s the kind of day where we’ll always have Paris.”

ouch.

am i shocked? no. am i dismayed? yes.

somehow i missed this story in last week's ny post:

Atlanta-based punk pop band Cartel has agreed to be caged in a 40-by-40- foot Fiberglas "bubble" planted at the tip of Pier 54 on the Hudson, where they will write, record and promote their sophomore record in 20 days.

according to the band's myspace page (where five MILLION people have listened to this so called "punk pop" garbage) they'll be exiting the bubble for a special engagement at... wait for it...

the iowa state fair.

ouch. i thought you were only supposed to play state fairs when your career was in decline.

but i guess if they're recording an album in a bubble, the decline started a long time ago...

two videos about baseball

okay, i usually don't put baseball stuff up here, but the mets blog is sort of defunct (as are the mets against the phillies so far -- damn you jimmy rollins). so here's a couple videos. first, here's a great clip of a manager for the mississippi braves arguing a call.

unfortunately, there's no way to hear what he's saying. if you're curious what the umpire and manager say to each other during these fights, watch the best arguer of all time -- the great earl weaver.

another american travesty

"The liberation movement is simply thrilled with the news! This is a triumph for grassroots civic action."

of course, this quote must be referring to the failure to effectively prosecute two foreign nationals imprisoned at guantanamo bay. right?

NO.

it's about paris fucking hilton, who's free after only five days in jail. freed due to a private medical matter.

there is no justice in america.

pictures!

so i went sailing yesterday. racing even! we finished last. but on such a beautiful day, who cares?

Sailing

hilarious!

speaking of sailing, here's a great time waster.

http://www.yachtrock.com/

sailing!

i am not going to work today. instead i am going sailing. hells yeah.

what i did yesterday instead of blogging

hey there. i miss you, blog. but sometimes you have to get outside. yesterday i spent nine disgusting hours overhauling my patio with the help of my sister and her friend molly. you see, my sister is moving to portland on monday [BOOOO!] and we're having a little going away bbq/dance party to send her off right. so the patio has to look its best. and it really does.

dammit, the pictures i took are sideways. but i have to go to work and i really want to show you.