My aching cell phone

I am known mostly for using, fixing and buying electronics. Also, I'm pretty good at breaking them.

Last Tuesday, my cell phone had a lovely short visit with his not so close aquitence, the ground. While all the major features are still intact, it no longer likes Memory sticks and refuses to read them. Therefore, it now cannot transfer pictures to my computer and I am without a way to get pictures to this blog, as I destroyed my sister's digital camera during the last snow storm and am not using her new one.

I'll be in the Cingular shop soon to use that insurance I pay for every month.

The Home Stretch

What a week. 4 days of apartment stuff and a little drama.

Tuesday: we entered the apartment to see its current state, piss yellow painted walls with a puke green kitchen. Floors that were messed up or didn't match, and lighting being redone. We measured, we chatted and we drank. A battle plan was partially made up.

Wednesday: IKEA here we went! While waiting for my mother (we call her Wheels) to work her way through the east side rush hour traffic, also known as the 'Kongo Line' I searched through Crate and Barrell. Most of their stuff was okay, but nothing that thrilled me. So it was off to NJ and IKEA. We found it, went in and I bought. One more trip will finish the immediate stuff.

Saturday: 12 hours of painting, beer, chips, cookies, jokes and classic rock later, we have an apartment that I call finally call my own. In one day we primed, colored, trimmed, cut and touched up all four rooms in the place and made it acceptable for living. I won't ruin it by telling you the scheme, but when you see the pictures and/or come and visit, you will like it.

This week: packing, and lots of it, in two locations. Another trip to IKEA to finish up and maybe some floor work before moving day on Saturday. If you're free, consider yourself drafted.

Moving

Lots of stuff to do, and not so much time.

Sorry, I won’t update as much and I think I broke my cell phone...

Rallied

Do you have an opinion? A message to get across to the masses? Something that is important to you that you want to communicate to everyone within shouting distance? Some people choose riots, but here in America, we have rallies !

This week, and last, the big issue is immigration, particular pertaining to a new immigration bill being considered in Congress. While I don’t know, and don’t care so much, the specifics of the bill, it will basically make it more difficult for immigrants, but legal and illegal, to remain in the United States and obtain citizenship. This bill has support for and against, many saying that this country was founded and made great by immigrants, others saying forcing all businesses to employ everyone legally and by the books would put a huge strain on the economy and reduce small business revenue into an area that would damage it against the constraint struggles against corporate America.

Whatever the case, I got stuck in it. Today, at 3PM, in downtown Manhattan, a huge (10,000+ people) rally was held in and around City Hall. The streets were filled with people and the ones that were open were blocked by the police from all different boroughs, which made travel on foot near impossible and getting decent directions even worse. I had to cross the rally three times (sorry no pictures) and run through four police blocked streets (okay, two I asked permission), while being pestered to join in the rally every step of the way. I’m all for equal rights and for the fact that we should not make it so difficult for people to come to this country (especially if you are Japanese and your name is Hasegawa Kyoko), but as for all the illegals who ran in across borders, or had conveniently took a vacation three weeks before the birth of your child, well, what do you want from me?

Foiled

The coolest thing about living in New York, or rather I should say, one of the only things I really like about living in New York, is the amount of cool random stuff you can find just by walking around the streets. From street performers, restaurants from every country in the world, unbelievable pizza and pretzels and even strange cars.

While returning to the barn after being with a client, I spotted this car on the Upper East Side. I’m not sure of much about it, except that it appears to be a small Ford pickup, with attached cab cover and the entire outside has been ripped off and remade with some type of tin or aluminum foil, which, as you can see from the pictures, reflects quite a bit of light and shows the limitations of my camera phone.

Anybody know more about this?

April Snow

Has the world gone amuck since Tuesday? I take a day off to relax from blogging, and as you know I sometimes take more than that, and I see all kinds of crazy things happening in the news. First, yesterday we had a real Yongetsu no Yuki, much to my surprise and probably the beautiful Yuki I knew back in Japan. I was completely floored when the client I was setting up a network for suddenly and unexpectedly yelled, “Hey, Nick, it’s snowing!!!” Was not expecting that.

Second, the big Mac announcement. For all of you who live under a rock, here’s the short version: Macs can now run Windows. Yes, I actually said that. Thanks to a new Apple beta program called Boot Camp, Intel Core Duo based machines can now run in dual boot mode to either Windows or Mac. The software includes all the drivers you will need and even helps with the archaic BIOS boot-up system. This is beta now, but will be a part of the OS X 10.5 Leopard. Now, I think I will order one.

A few other things worth noting: I know now where Katie Couric lives, get a little more original with your SSIDs baby, but don’t worry, I’m not telling anyone. Linksys plugs can make an old Airport work, but I’m not sure if it will burn out or not, only time will tell. The deli downstairs actually has fairly decent Mac&Cheese. Google Local will never be able to find your office well. Coffee Shop in Union Square has a decent bar, if not a bit too Euro-trashy at times…

the Talented Mr. Park

Many things change in life. Today’s post is about one of them. Meet, Mr. Park.

Mr. Park is just your average kitty, who was given way too much love. And in terms of love, I mean food. According to his owner, who will remain anonymous because she knows who she is and I’m sure the pain in the lower half of her back from lifting all 25 pounds of Mr. Park will teach her not to feed him so much, Mr. Park consumes the equivalent of about 4 coffee cups of food a day. In addition, his favorite pastime is sitting and getting petted. While this is recommended by the AAOLFA (American Association of Obese Lazy Fucks of America), perhaps a change is in order.

Still I feel the need to point out that such transformations are not irreversible. I present my own slimming down and Jared Fogle, from Subway, as examples. While conversing fattening up is not totally uncommon, as shown here by Tera Patrick (safe for work).

So, I have some advice for Mr. Park. Let’s talk cat-to-man:

Here’s the deal, bro. In your current state, no female is gonna let you sniff her ass or do nothin’ else that you cats like to do. And all that extra weight ya carrying is gonna make it difficult for you to get out of the house and find any girls anyway. Get active, start running laps around the coffee table, eat only small portions, lots of times a day and instead of lying down and getting scratched by your owners, go attack something and give your claws a workout. Just remember, your owner only has one back and she isn’t going to throw it out for you again! Oh, and it’s time to get up off that printer, which is slowly crushing together into one unrecognizable blob of plastic and toner from your own fat ass.

And yes A, he is cute…

Scary Cake

Happy Birthday Dawn! Okay, three weeks late. This post was supposed to go on the site sometime early last week or the week before, but I forgot, got busy, etc. You know the story. Anyway, cousin Dawn turns 25 this year, once again reminding me that I will be 27 in just a few months.

Dawn, to commemorate the occasion threw herself a party, which featured ping-pong with Uncle Richie (he will so kick your ass), bumper pool with Andrew (same here), lots of Coronas, delicious food, and, perhaps the scariest cake I have ever seen.

Yes, Barbie was baked right into the cake. Now, if you can’t make out from these pictures, the idea behind this cake is that Barbie is wearing a old-style big dress, that just happens to be made out of chocolate frosting. Okay, I lied, I don’t think she was baked into it, but at least half of her (the important half) was sticking out of it). No, I didn’t try it, the ice cream cake looked much better. Don’t expect anything so creative at my party, just lots of alcohol, which I gave up for Lent.

Lent

I’ve never been a religious person and even I was more so, I was never very into it. Case in point, what I gave up for Lent. Usually, not much. In high school, myself and my mates had small competitions to see who could come up with the most silly thing to give up.

But I regress, as I’m getting ahead of myself. What is Lent? Let me preface this with: I’m not religious and have no intention of using this site as a bulletin board for that sort of garbage. In fact I am very much against organized religion, especially if it has to do with Tom Cruise. Anyway, Lent is the forty day period prior to Easter, where Christians practice ritual fasting and give up something, in honor of what happened to Christ. The fasting has been reduced to Friday by Americans, I think, and now for most it means that they don’t eat McDonald’s on that day. While many do follow this whole-heartedly, many don’t. For example I gave up smoking in the 4^th Grade, beer in the 5^th, sex in the 6^th (for real!) and watching the Lifetime network throughout most of high school.

Anyway, I’m impressed with my cousin. The 14 year old has given up video games for Lent. This from the kid who is thoroughly addicted to Xbox Live Halo. I am completely floored not so much by the idea, which crossed my mind at least for a few seconds before each Lent season (there are like 18 seasons in the Christian calendar), but rather for the dedication he has to seeing it through to the end and finishing it up in style. Well, Andrew, it’s the home stretch, kid. Next Sunday, you don’t have to come to dinner, you can play until your eyes bleed and they probably will since you haven’t played in over a month! As for me, I have been having severe withdrawal being separated from the Farmer’s Almanac, but I think I can manage for another few weeks…

Fooled

Not gonna post!!! Hahaha!!

And for everyone who thinks I should’ve used this opportunity to write something witty and fool you all, well, ummm, don’t you realize by now that 85% of the shit that comes out of my mouth is bullshit anyway?